


one for the road

by nineteenohtwo



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Banter, Bickering, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Music, Road Trips, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2019-08-30 04:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16757407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nineteenohtwo/pseuds/nineteenohtwo
Summary: “So, are you excited?”“Man, I can’t believe that our parents allowed us to make a road trip without supervision.”“I mean, if mom could take time off, she would be here in the car with us. Visiting colleges is important,” Cyrus said, happily munching on his French fries, “even if we only visit NYU for a little bit and blow the rest of our time in New York.”“We’re also blowing our time in Chicago,” TJ said, “and maybe Cleveland.”Road Trip AU - feelings, music, food, fights, and a lot of driving.





	1. FEELING THIS - BLINK-182

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the bad language!  
> New tags will be added when the story progresses, but I don't want to spoil future chapters, for the ones who are reading this as a WIP.

“You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re dead wrong, and that’s the last thing I’m saying about this bullshit,” Cyrus said, placing his hands over his ears, determined to not fall for TJ’s bullshit, “the fact that you even try to pretend that Blink-182 isn’t the supreme road trip band is bad enough, I can’t bear to hear your shitty arguments.”

“In all of our years of friendship, I’ve never heard you be more in the wrong. It’s clearly Nirvana.”

“Name three Nirvana songs that can be classified as road-trip anthems. I will be here. Waiting. Forever.”

“Okay,” TJ said, heated, and clearly up for the challenge, his eyes focussed on the road, “‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a given.”

Cyrus begrudgingly agreed, only because ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a classic and a road-trip staple.

“Second, ‘Come As You Are, of course” TJ continued his list.

“Sorry, are we just doing Nirvana’s greatest hits here? I asked you for road-trip material, not for a ‘Nevermind’ track list.”

“You’re literally impossible. What makes Blink-182 so great?”

Cyrus launched into an explanation of exactly which factors made Blink-182 the ‘Greatest Road Trip Band Ever’, and what set road trip material apart from regular music, because you won’t ever find Cyrus casually listening to Blink-182.

All songs that were considered Road Trip Material had to be a) catchy, b) upbeat, c) be easy to sing along to, and d) be highly nostalgic.

“And that’s why ‘Feeling This’ is, and will always be, the ultimate road trip anthem.”

“That’s bullshit. You know what, ask Buffy, she’s going to agree with _me_ ,” TJ said, committed to the argument, “open the group chat _right now_ and ask her which one is superior. Loser buys the other one a burger at the next diner we see.”

“You’re on,” Cyrus agreed, and for a while the only thing that could be heard in the car was the tapping of Cyrus’ fingers on his phone screen, and the sound of Cyrus’ muffled giggles.

“What’s so funny?” TJ asked, glancing over at Cyrus, who was smiling at his phone.

“Andi changed your nickname back to the previous one. She says that you are forbidden to change your own nickname from now on.”

“Tell her to stop being fucking mean.” TJ pouted.

“Why? I think ‘Basketball Bitch’ suits you perfectly, I really don’t know why anyone would take offense to it.” Cyrus laughed.

TJ turned the radio on, since they still hadn’t settled on whose playlist they would put on. TJ’s beat up Volkswagen was suddenly filled with the deep voice of the news reporter telling them that the temperature would get significantly warmer than it had been the previous few days.

“God, just now we’re going on a cross country road trip. What’s Buffy saying?” TJ asked, noticing that Cyrus was angrily typing a response.

“She says we’re both clearly imbeciles and the superior band is obviously Queen.”

TJ whistled softly through his teeth.

“She’s got a point there, Underdog.”

Cyrus’ phone pinged again, alerting him that a new message had arrived. Cyrus picked up his phone, looked at it for a bit and put it away again with a blank stare.

“Jonah says it’s Nicki Minaj.”

 

-

 

“Google Maps says that we have another five hours to drive today.”

“What’s the time?”

“It’s a little past 1PM.”

“Right on schedule.” TJ said, pushing his sunglasses further up his nose. “Should we stop for lunch?”

“Let’s just get McDonalds and eat in the parking lot. I have no desire to leave the car.” Cyrus said. TJ nodded, singing along to the song that was playing on the radio. After their discussion had dragged on for a good twenty minutes, they made a compromise and just put on the Spotify Road Trip Playlist.

“ _Now I’m free! Free falling_!” TJ crooned along to Tom Petty, while taking an exit marked with the familiar gold McDonalds arches.

“Can I get a Quarter Pounder with cheese and a Large Coke, please?” TJ said, “What do you want?”

“A Large French Fries with ketchup and a Vanilla Milk Shake, please. Can you also add a bottled water?”

“ _That’ll be it?_ ” a bored voice sounded through the speaker.

“Yes please.”

“ _Please come up to the window.”_

“Thank you,” TJ said, driving up to the window, paying for and accepting their meal.

The parking lot, where TJ parked his car was completely empty, save for five cars, who he suspected belonged to the employees.

“I’ll pay for dinner, then,” Cyrus said, fishing his packet of French fries from the bag.

“Sure,” TJ said, “catch me ordering a full on lobster menu with a bottle of wine.”

“I’d like to see you try. You look about fourteen with that baby face of yours.”

“You have the height of a fourteen-year-old.”

“We both know I have grown a shit ton this past year!” Cyrus protested, throwing a fry at TJ’s face.

“You’re nowhere close to me, though.” TJ said, catching the fry in his mouth with ease.

“Shut up, I can’t help it you’re a fucking giraffe.”

TJ grinned and turned off the radio.

“So, are you excited?”

“Man, I can’t believe that our parents allowed us to make a road trip without supervision.”

“I mean, if mom could take time off, she would be here in the car with us. Visiting colleges is important,” Cyrus said, happily munching on his French fries, “even if we only visit NYU for a little bit and blow the rest of our time in New York.”

“We’re also blowing our time in Chicago,” TJ said, “and maybe Cleveland.”

“I really don’t get why you want to visit Cleveland that bad.”

“I just want to be able to say that I’ve been to Cleveland. We can just stop there for a coffee, or one of your sugary Starbucks monstrosities.” TJ answered, stretching out his arms above his head, “Would you mind driving for a bit?”

“If I get to pick the music.”

“Alright,” TJ gave in, “but no Lana Del Rey.”

“Fuck right off.”

 

-

 

“ _Fate fell short this time, your smile fades in the summer, place your hand in mine, I’ll leave when I wanna_ ,” Cyrus screamed, head-bobbing as much as he could without losing control of the wheel, or sight of the road. “Come on, TJ!”

“ _Where do we go from here_ ,” TJ sang, less enthusiastic than Cyrus, who was positively going ballistic. He was also a lot more comprehensible than Cyrus, who was trying to sing both parts of the song at once, “ _turn all the lights down now_.”

“Fucking _hell_ , Blink-182 gets me going.” Cyrus said when the song ended.

“I can see that,” TJ said, “calm down, will you. Can I pick a song now?”

“Sure,” Cyrus said, slightly out of breath, “but make it a good one.”

“Does Avicii work for you?”

“Yeah, I love Avicii,” Cyrus said, pushing his sweaty hair back, “can you hand me my bottled water, please?”

They were hardly driving anymore. The car had been stuck in traffic for the better part of an hour, and TJ was bored.

“Do you want to play 20 questions? I spy? Truth or dare?”

“What are you, twelve? Also how do you plan on pulling off truth or dare on the road?”

“I’m _bored_ , Cyrus.” TJ complained, putting his feet up on the dashboard. “Listening to music can only keep you busy for so long. It’s so hot in the car, and we’ve been driving for seven hours and you haven’t let me play one Nirvana song the entire time.”

“You know TJ, I really look up to you.” Cyrus said out of the blue, turning the music down.

“You do?”

“Yeah, I’ve never met anyone who can complain like you.” Cyrus said, craning his neck to look out over the stagnant traffic, and was relieved to see that a few cars in the front of the line seemed to be driving again.

“I thought it was because you’re short.”

“Shut up. I’m not having that discussion again today.”

“So… Twenty questions?” TJ teased, poking Cyrus in the side.

“Fine, but no boring ones.”

 

-

 

“What’s your favourite movie made in the eighties?” TJ asked, eating his way through a bag of Skittles.

“That’s one hell of an question, Teej.”

“I love that nickname.”

“I know you do,” Cyrus said, putting out his hand in front of TJ’s face, who obediently poured some of his candy in it, “maybe ‘Dead Poets Society’? Or Ferris Bueller?”

“Those are really good.”

“Thanks. What is one thing you really want to do before you leave for college?” Cyrus asked, with a mouth full of Skittles.

The sun was burning on his forearms, and he made a mental reminder to reapply sunscreen when they stopped the car, because he wasn’t feeling looking like a lobster tomorrow. TJ seemed to really mull the question over, fiddling with the plastic bag in his hands.

“I think I want to come out to my family before I leave, I guess. Grandpa’s getting real old and I want him to know before he… You know. It wouldn’t feel right, leaving everything here behind without telling them.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, suddenly really quiet, thinking of his own Bubbe, and how he hadn’t told anyone but his small circle of friends. Shadyside wasn’t exactly the most _welcoming_ environment for LGBT, and he was eager to head out to bigger cities where he could breathe a different air. “I know exactly how you feel.”

Cyrus took his hand of the gearstick to put it on TJ’s knee for a second. He knew that TJ had been really struggling with his identity and sexuality, especially being the captain of the basketball team, and coming from a Christian family.

“You can talk to me about those things, if you want.”

“I know.” TJ didn’t look at Cyrus, but instead looked out the front window and smiled to himself. “How many people have you kissed?”

“You know that one. Only Iris, back when I was thirteen or something. How many people have _you_ kissed?”

“Two? I think.”

“Natalie and Ethan?”

“Yeah.” TJ said. He had kissed them both on the same night, during a game of spin the bottle when they were fifteen. His kiss with Natalie had been pleasant. She was a great kisser, and she smelled nice, but it wasn’t until his _very_ brief kiss with Ethan, who used too much tongue and tasted like garlicky pizza, and, in hindsight, had been a lot worse than Natalie, that he realised that _yes, this was what he wanted._

Cyrus had also been playing that night, but the bottle never landed on him. TJ had been a little sad that his first kiss with a boy hadn’t been with his best friend, or someone he knew a little better than the boy who was a benchwarmer for his basketball team.

“Which song makes you the happiest, and which one makes you the saddest?”

“Are you reading some kind of blog or are you really just pulling that question out of your ass?” Cyrus said, dumbfounded.

“I just really want to know!” TJ laughed, but discreetly put his phone in his pocket, what convinced Cyrus that he did just find that question online.

“Uh. That’s a really, _really_ tough one. Happiest, maybe… I really don’t know!” Cyrus laughed, thinking really hard, “I get really happy just listening to cheesy pop songs, you know. ‘Shut up and dance’ is a good one.”

“That is a really happy song,” TJ said, immediately putting it in the queue, “and sad?”

“There’s this Phoebe Bridgers song Spotify recommended for me last week, that was just depressing. Very good, but really depressing, called like ‘Funeral’, I think?” Cyrus rambled, “I listened to it in bed, and I just… wasn’t okay after. Also, ‘Broadripple is burning’ is a song Buffy sent me a couple months back, that one makes me sad. Also-”

“It’s okay, Cyrus, I only asked for one,” TJ said in a soft voice, looking at his phone. “I just took a really nice picture of you driving.”

“Instagram worthy?”

“I’m posting it on my story.”

“Alright. Would you trade your sister for ten million dollars?” Cyrus said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for the car in front of him to start driving, because the traffic light had been green for at least five seconds.

“Amber is a little shit, but no.”

 

-

 

TJ took a bottle of Sprite from the cooler in the back.

“We can stop the car and have dinner at the next diner we see, just be patient,” Cyrus said, focussing on the car in front of him that finally started moving again. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“It’s only like… half an hour until we arrive, so we’ll grab dinner and then check into the motel Andi booked for us.”

“You let Andi book a motel for us?” TJ asked, fiddling with the drawstrings of his hoodie.

“Yeah, she stayed there once with Bowie, and offered to book it for us. I was pretty occupied by mapping out a cross-country road trip, so I _really_ didn’t mind the help.”

TJ took a long swig from his bottle of Sprite and burped. “Alright Cy. Are we eating there or do you want to drive a bit more?”

He motioned to diner, that had a strong sixties theme going on, a bit further down the road. The parking lot was almost empty, save for ten, fifteen cars, but the lights were on and it looked cosy enough, so Cyrus nodded and pulled in.

TJ led Cyrus into the diner, pushing the door open with his shoulder. It was decorated in pastel tones of blue, pink and green, with a big counter taking up the entire right side of the place.

They sat down in a small booth, opposite of each other, on mint-green plastic couches. There was a tiny jukebox in the middle of the table, with an impressive collection of classic songs, ranging from the fifties to the nineties.

“Can I borrow a quarter?”

Cyrus dug up a quarter from his pocket, handed it to TJ, and moments later their little booth was filled by the familiar drums of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

“I love rock ‘n roll, huh. You’re getting predictable, Teej.”

“Shut it, you told me you loved this song a week ago.”

Cyrus smiled and studied the plastic menu card taped to the table. He went over their extensive list of pizza and burger options before deciding to just order the first thing on the menu.

“Have you decided on what you want to order yet?”

Cyrus looked up to see a pretty girl with long, brown hair pulled into a ponytail holding the smallest notebook he had ever seen. She was wearing white pants and a mint green shirt, effortlessly blending into the décor of the diner. Her “Hello, my name is” tag said CINDY, drawn in big, pink bubbly letters with a tiny heart dotting the ‘i’.

“I would like a, uhm, _Chef’s Choice Burger Menu_ with fries, extra ketchup and a Cherry Coke, please.”

She wrote down his order, not sparing him a single glance, but instead keeping all of her attention focussed on TJ.

“Can I get you anything, handsome?”

_Oh. That was how it was going to be._

“Uh, yeah, I’ll have a Margherita pizza and a Fanta, please.” TJ said, looking confused.

“Okay! If _you_ need anything else,” she said to TJ, while batting her eyelashes, “just give a yell.”

She walked away from the table, with swaying hips and a swaying ponytail, still occasionally sneaking glances at TJ from behind the bar where she was pouring their drinks.

“Dude, she totally has the hots for you,” Cyrus said, annoyed at the peppy waitress and her _stupid_ flirting.

“She’s just being nice, Cy.”

“You are _actually_ blind.” Cyrus huffed.

Cindy returned sooner than Cyrus would’ve liked, putting their drinks down in front of them.

“So, are you here for long?” Cindy said, sitting down next to TJ on the bench.

“No, we’re just passing through on our way to New York. We’re staying in a motel about half an hour from here.” TJ said, taking a sip of his Fanta, trying not to spill any of his drink from the overflowing glass.

“That’s too bad,” she said, putting a perfectly manicured hand on TJ’s upper thigh.

“Don’t you have a job to do,” Cyrus interrupted her aggressive flirting, avoiding TJ’s disapproving stare.

“Sadly, yes,” she said, standing up from the bench, winking at TJ, “I’ll see you in a bit.”

TJ smiled at her and watched her leave, rolling his straw between his thumb and forefinger and waited until she was serving an elderly couple at the complete other side of the restaurant to kick Cyrus in the shin.

“What the fuck, dude? That was so fucking rude!”

“Well, it was true!” Cyrus defended himself, “that old woman was trying to get her attention for at least two minutes.”

“You always blow shit out of proportion, Cyrus.”

“God, now it’s my fault that some random waitress is flirting with you.” Cyrus crossed his arms, and looked out through the window at the parking lot, where a family with three tiny kids were walking to their car.

“A pizza for you, and a burger special for your little friend?”

Cindy had returned, this time holding plates of delicious smelling food. Cyrus was silently seething with rage at how she called him TJ’s little friend, but accepted the burger she gave him, and watched her flirt with TJ for another two minutes, before the elderly couple at the other side of the restaurant seized her attention once again.

“Little friend. _Little friend._ What a bitch.”

“That’s what you get for being so rude to her, Cy.” TJ said, biting off a huge chunk of his pizza, and continued with his mouth full, “she was being nice to you before.”

“She hasn’t even looked at me once, Teej.”

“Don’t start with that nickname, I can’t be angry when you call me that.”

Cyrus smiled, popping a fry in his mouth.

He didn’t understand why he was getting so riled up about a random girl in a random diner flirting with his best friend. He had no right getting territorial over TJ, but oh boy, did he want to.

At the end of their meal, when Cindy came to clean the table and left a napkin for TJ with her number on it, underlined with her name and three X’s, and to make matters worse, a big red lipstick kiss, Cyrus was fuming, but he knew he had no right.

TJ took the napkin and pocketed it, waiting while Cyrus went up to the counter to pay for their meals.

They walked out of the restaurant, and TJ walked to the nearest trash can and dumped the napkin.

“Why did you take it, if you were just going to ditch it anyway?” Cyrus asked, baffled.

“Didn’t want to hurt her feelings.” TJ smiled, “Besides, I can’t go out with someone who is rude to my best friend.”

He slung an easy arm around Cyrus’ shoulder, and together they walked back to TJ’s car, bickering about whose turn it was to drive.


	2. DAZED AND CONFUSED - RUEL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> language! what a surprise

“I have a reservation under Goodman,” Cyrus said, looking at TJ, who was carrying his own backpack on his front and Cyrus’ on his back, finally walking through the entrance of the motel.

“Yes! I assume you are Cyrus,” the receptionist, a girl that seemed to be a little older than them, twenty maybe, said, taking a sip of mug of coffee, “Goodman, one night, single queen bed room, is that correct?”

“No, I think we’re supposed to be booked under double beds?” Cyrus said, craning his neck to look at the computer screen.

“I am sorry, sir, but it seems like your reservation got messed up. Should I look if we have a double bed room available?”

“Yes,” TJ, who had come up to see what was taking so long, said, “that would be for the best.”

The receptionist opened what looked like an Excel file, quickly scanning the page from top to bottom, and finally looked at them with pitying eyes.

“I’m so sorry, but the room you reserved is the only one available tonight, I’m afraid. We’re up to full capacity. I can see if we can send up an extra stretcher?”

TJ and Cyrus looked at each other before TJ shrugged and rolled his eyes, meaning ‘ _it’s not like we haven’t done that before’_ , before turning to the receptionist, “I’m sure we can share the bed.”

“Okay!” Her face lit up, obviously relieved that they weren’t mad at her, or _worse_ , going to make a scene, “This is your room key, your room is on the second floor, to the right of the elevator.”

TJ managed an extremely forced smile and thanked the receptionist, before following Cyrus, who had already left, to the elevator.

“How odd that Andi didn’t book us a room with double beds,” TJ remarked, “don’t trust her ever again with booking us a room, she clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

“Yeah, very odd,” Cyrus replied absentmindedly. He was pretty sure that Andi knew _exactly_ what she was doing.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened his text conversation with Andi.

 

** Andi **

 

what the fuck Andi

a single bed?

stop trying to set me up with TJ!

 

but you’re so perfect for each other though

 

well

I don’t think so

and I do not need you meddling in MY love life

thank you very much

 

you don’t have a love life for me to meddle in

oof

well we don’t feel anything for each other

yeah, keep telling yourself that buddy

 

Cyrus put his phone away with a sigh, shaking his head when he met TJ’s questioning eyes. He was dreading explaining to TJ that Andi had in fact booked them a single bed room on purpose, because she was wrongly convinced that Cyrus had unspoken feelings for TJ.

He ultimately decided to not tell TJ anything, because it would for sure cause unnecessary tension between them, _just_ when they had to share a bed for the night. Thanks Andi.

“She says she probably just clicked the wrong box on the website,” Cyrus said, leaning against the wall, waiting for the elevator to arrive.

“Alright,” TJ said, studying Cyrus’ face, and clearly not really convinced by the lie, “I’m just glad we’ve arrived, to be honest.”

Cyrus nodded in silence and walked into the elevator. The elevator doors closed, and Cyrus watched the number on the screen go up from zero to two in a matter of seconds, releasing a sigh of relief, because he could use a bed right that instant.

“You’re so melodramatic,” TJ said, offering Cyrus his hand, pulling him out of the elevator.

 

-

 

TJ had tried to turn on the ancient hotel television, but sadly it only produced static.

They had been killing time by lounging on the bed, talking about everything and nothing on top of the worn down hotel sheets.

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

“Definitely not,” Cyrus said, rolling over onto his stomach, so he could look TJ in the eye. Their motel room smelled like stale cigarette smoke and dust, but it was alright. The Wi-Fi was excellent and the bed was big enough for the both of them to sleep comfortably without having to breath in each other’s air. “Do you?”

“Yeah, man.” TJ said, looking confused, “Why don’t you believe in soulmates?”

Cyrus took a long breath before he hesitantly started to speak.

“I don’t like the idea of this one predestined person that the universe pairs you up with. People aren’t born for each other, and the idea that you have this fate written in the stars is just so… _absurd_ to me. Soulmates just take the element of choice out of the equation.”

He thought for a while before adding, “I am my own person.”

“Yeah you are,” TJ said softly, flipping onto his back and looking up at the ceiling, “but the idea that there’s someone out there for me is comforting.”

“I don’t know. I think I’d like figure out where someone fits into my life better than a perfect puzzle piece. The concept of a soulmate is this one person that is perfect for you, right? But what if you change? Do they change with you? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the concept in its entirety?”

TJ said nothing and kept his gaze focussed on a nasty brown stain on the ceiling, so Cyrus stayed silent as well, rolling over on his back.

The ceiling fan rotated at an agonizingly slow speed, producing little to no cool air and a sound that was annoying as hell, but neither Cyrus nor TJ wanted to get up and turn it off.

“How the fuck did someone manage to stain the ceiling?”

“That’s probably moisture damage.” Cyrus said, furrowing his brows, “that was one hell of a non sequitur.”

TJ sighed, rolling over and putting his face in a pillow. “I was just wondering. Or like, trying to make conversation.”

Cyrus looked at his watch, seeing that it was already past eleven.

“We should probably hit the sack, if we leave at eight tomorrow morning, then we have to get up at half past seven.”

“Why the fuck are we leaving at eight?”

“Because I’m not about to arrive at one in the morning at the next stop, because you can’t get out of bed.” Cyrus huffed, poking TJ in the leg with his toe, “Besides, it’s good for the soul to have early mornings.”

“Did Jonah put you up to that? That sounds like some premium Jonah bullshit.”

“No!” Cyrus protested, burying his face in his pillow to hide his blush, because it was absolutely something he had taken over from Jonah. “I’m going to set an alarm. Are you showering tomorrow or tonight?”

TJ groaned, contemplating the question in earnest. Cyrus knew that TJ disliked going to bed with wet hair since it ‘ruined his hair’, but he also knew that he hated getting up early with a passion usually reserved for bad television shows and kidney beans.

“Tonight, I think, even though-”

“Even though it’ll ruin your hair, which is a big fat lie.” Cyrus interrupted, having heard that speech at least four times already, “Just jump in the shower, you big dork.”

TJ laughed and crouched down to take his shampoo and toothbrush from his backpack.

“You’re a little shit, you know that, right?”

“I pride myself on it. I’ll shower in the morning, and I’ll wake you up after, so you can have the maximum amount of sleep.” Cyrus said, setting the alarm on his phone for half past seven, and setting the ringtone to the most annoying song he could think of.

“Are you ready to wake up to the sweet melody of ‘What’s New Pussycat’?”

“No,” TJ sighed, “are we already onto the John Mulaney references?”

Cyrus laughed out loud, throwing a pillow at TJ’s head, “You bet your ass we are.”

“But what a fine ass it is,” TJ said, catching the pillow with ease and throwing it back at Cyrus, hitting him right in the face.

TJ laughed, looking at Cyrus who had not yet taken the pillow off of his face and was lying down like he’d been shot. “Sorry! Sorry, I forgot you have slow reflexes!”

“I prefer the term athletically challenged.”

“Whatever floats your boat, kiddo. Do you want to borrow my stuff tomorrow morning? Then I’ll just leave it in the shower.”

“Sure,” Cyrus grumbled, not pleased at all to be called kiddo, or to be told he had slow reflexes, “just go shower, you big idiot. And don’t call me kiddo anymore, we were born two whole months apart, you’re not an old man.”

“Can I still call you little one?”

Cyrus blushed from under the pillow at the mention of TJ’s childhood nickname for him.

“God, I can’t even believe you remember that. The last time you’ve called me that was when we were twelve or something.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” TJ said, before disappearing into the bathroom.

Cyrus mumbled a silent but fond “ _idiot_ ”, and came out from under the pillow when he heard the shower being turned on, walking over to his backpack and pulling a pair of soccer shorts he’d gotten from Jonah when they were cleaning out his garage, and an old Journey concert tee that had once belonged to his mother to wear to bed. He also took his toothbrush out, changed into his nightwear and patiently waited on the bed for TJ to be done, mindlessly scrolling down his Instagram feed.

Buffy and TJ had tagged them in their story. He opened Buffy’s first, which was just a picture of Andi and Amber walking hand-in-hand in front of Buffy with the caption ‘ _third wheeling like a pro @cygoodguy where u at?_

Cyrus smiled and replied a picture of his legs on the bed, adding that he was in a dusty ass motel room.

TJ’s story had three parts: a boomerang of Cyrus stuffing his face with French fries, a picture of him holding up a bag of Skittles with the road as a background, and at last, the picture of Cyrus driving, captioned ‘ _tiny dancer, I mean driver #onefortheroad @cygoodguy’_.

The picture was clearly taken when Cyrus was talking, a shot of him half-turned towards TJ but with his eyes trained on the road, the sun lighting up his face. Cyrus tried to recall if they’d been listening to Elton John when the picture was taken, but he couldn’t remember.

“Yo, Underdog, bathroom’s free, if you need it.” TJ opened the bathroom door, and came outside in a pair of worn down basketball shorts, and his bare chest, towelling his hair dry.

“Thanks, I’ll be there in a second,” he said, plugging his phone into the charger and reaching for his toothbrush. His breath caught in his throat looking at his shirtless friend, feeling very fired up for some reason. “Put on a shirt, you nudist.”

TJ dove head first onto the bed and wove in Cyrus’ general direction with his head in his pillow. “Just go brush your teeth.”

Cyrus walked into the tiny bathroom, and he was immediately hit with mildly unpleasant heat and the citrusy smell of TJ’s shampoo. The mirror was fogged up with steam, apart from one small part TJ had wiped off. He quickly brushed his teeth and flossed, because dental health is important (another example of his newly acquired Jonah Beck bullshit), and walked back into the room, where TJ had made himself comfortable under the duvet.

“You look snug,” Cyrus commented, getting in on his side of the bed, pulling at the duvet. “share the fucking duvet with me now, TJ Kippen, or I’m putting my cold feet on your legs.”

“I need this duvet, I’m cold.”

“Then put on a fucking shirt.”

TJ grumbled but eventually opened up his cocoon and let Cyrus have his rightful share of the duvet, where he gratefully climbed under, because the temperature in the hotel was varying wildly, from nauseating heat to cold as hell in only a matter of hours.

“So, we go to sleep now?”

“That’s usually what people do in beds, yes,” Cyrus said, turning off the lamp on his nightstand.

The room was barely lit up, but the silhouettes of the old chairs, the television stand and the closet could still be made out by the amber light of the lamp on TJ’s side of the room. TJ rolled over to face Cyrus, and for a little while they just lived in that moment. No Andi, no Buffy, no colleges, no annoying waitresses, just them, sharing a bed on their first great adventure.

“I like your hair when you wash it,” Cyrus whispered, reaching out and touching it, “it’s so soft.”

“Well, I don’t think I’m putting in any gel for the foreseeable future,” TJ whispered back, furrowing his brows, looking adorably upset, “I forgot all of my hair stuff at home.”

Cyrus snorted, effectively ruining the moment, and subsequently rolled over on his back.

“You mind turning your light off?”

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Cyrus smiled, his eyes already feeling heavy and slowly closing.

 

-

 

_WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT? WHOA-OH-OOOH!_

_“Fuck.”_ A sleep drunk Cyrus groaned and picked up the phone on his nightstand, shutting off the alarm completely. He yawned and tried to get up, but was hindered by two strong arms that were completely locked around his waist, and a warm figure that was completely plastered against his back.

“Hmmm,” TJ protested when Cyrus tried to get up, tightening his grip around Cyrus’ waist.

“TJ, let go, I need to go shower,” Cyrus said, struggling to get out of TJ’s arms.

“You don’t _have_ to shower, you don’t smell god awful yet,” TJ said, snuggling more into Cyrus’ back.

“Alright, that’s enough buddy,” Cyrus said, wriggling away from TJ and poking him in the cheek, “I smell like dusty motel room, and your car.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the smell of my car.”

“Just go back to sleep.”

If this had been the first time Cyrus shared a bed with TJ, it might’ve struck him as strange that TJ was treating him like a personal teddy bear, but he knew (from experience) that TJ had a lifelong habit of clinging onto the first thing he found in his sleep and then holding on for dear life.

Cyrus grabbed clean underwear, a pair of sweatpants and a black t-shirt and walked into the bathroom, immediately jumping in the shower, his muscles relaxing under the hot water. He squirted some of TJ’s shampoo onto his hand, washing his hair, his body and finally drying off, before slipping into his clothes, and brushing his teeth.

“TJ, it’s time to get up,” Cyrus said, walking back into the room with TJ’s shampoo and his toothbrush in hand, looking at the lump on the bed that was his friend and poking him when he did not move an inch, “c’mon, dude, get up, we have a long way to go today.”

“Hmm, five more minutes,” TJ groaned, rolling over.

“Nope! Up now!” Cyrus shouted, and yanked the duvet away from TJ’s body, exposing his bare chest to the cool air in the room, “By the way, would you mind if I borrowed your hoodie? All of mine are in the suitcase, and I saw you brought one extra.”

“I _told_ you that you had to put a hoodie in your backpack,” TJ said, running a hand through his hair, making it stand up in every direction, “but, sure, you can borrow mine.”

“Thanks,” Cyrus pulled the blue Grant High School basketball team hoodie over his head, completely engulfed in it. He rolled up the sleeves to have functional use of his hands, and started packing up his backpack. “If you get up now you can pick the music for the first two hours of driving.”

“That’s a deal, Underdog,” TJ said, swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed and walking into the bathroom.

Cyrus shook his head fondly, and made the bed, because he thought that even though the motel staff was going to strip the bed and put on clean sheets, it wasn’t more than normal to not leave a mess, out of basic respect.

He finished packing and sat on the bed, waiting for TJ to be finished in the bathroom. He scrolled a bit on Instagram, liking Amber’s latest post, a really nice polaroid picture of Andi wearing a flower crown.

 **@amberkippen** : ‘ _hey! i think i’m going to keep you forever x @a_ndi'_

He scrolled down his feed in search of a matching post on Andi’s Instagram, and he found it; a picture of Amber looking into her camera, taking a picture of the sky.

 **@a_ndi** : ‘ _have you ever seen anything this pretty @amberkippen’_

He commented a yellow heart on both, smiling at his phone.

“Are you all packed,” TJ emerged from the bathroom, picking up his backpack from the floor and stuffing his towel and toothbrush in the front pocket.

“Yes,” Cyrus said, “ready to check out and get out?”

“If you’re driving,” TJ said, looking through his backpack, taking out his wallet and holding it up in the air, “You can wait in the car and I’ll go check out.”

He walked opened the door and waited for Cyrus to follow him.

“Hey! When was it decided that I’m driving?” Cyrus protested, following TJ out of the door and locking it behind him.

“I decided,” TJ said, putting his hood up, “I’m still basically half asleep, so that’s not road safe.”

“You use that argument every time we drive in the morning.”

“Oh shush,” TJ said, lightly shoving Cyrus, “just go wait in the car already and stop complaining.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Cyrus teased, shoving TJ back, “throw me the keys please.”

He caught the keys and walked outside of the motel, putting their backpacks in the trunk and waiting in the driver's seat for TJ to also walk out of the building.

“Should we stop at Starbucks for breakfast?” TJ fiddled with his phone, scrolling down the Spotify app and settling on an easy Daniel Caesar song.

“Yes, I could really use a coffee.”

“You don’t drink coffee,” TJ said, scrunching up his nose, “you order liquid sugar and call it coffee.”

“I don’t come here to be bullied, TJ Kippen.”

TJ laughed softly, poking Cyrus in the shoulder.

“But bullying you is the greatest pleasure I have ever known.”

“Your love life must be _fucking_ great.”

“ _Now_ , who’s the bully?” TJ huffed out, turning up the song while Cyrus smiled, and looked at the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright new chapter, i really really hope you like it! i am trying to write a story that progresses a bit more slowly, but it's getting there  
> please come say hi on tumblr, i'm at [nineteenohtwo](https://nineteenohtwo.tumblr.com/), my prompts are always open and i have a month and a half off, so i have a fuckload of time rn  
> leave a comment telling me what you thought of it xx


	3. DON'T KILL MY VIBE - SIGRID

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'VE BEEN GONE SO LONG SORRY ALSO LANGUAGE  
> also i am kinda shitting on Iowa in this chapter but i have never been there it can for sure be very lovely but i just assume all of the USA is a bit of a craphole

“You’re wrong.”

“Well, _your_ taste in cinema is shit.”

“You are _so_ goddamn pretentious, Cyrus.”

“And _you_ are easily fooled by cool CGI.”

Cyrus pushed his sunglasses further up on his nose and crossed his arms. He looked at the car in front of them and tried to use the Force to get it to move from the spot it had been stuck in for the past fifteen minutes.

“You’re so fucking hung up on the use of CGI because you have a weird hard on for Jurassic Park.” TJ defended himself, angrily gripping the steering wheel, “Just because some dude built a life size T-rex doesn’t mean that other movies can’t just use available, and might I add perfectly fine, technology to create cool visuals.”

“I’m not shitting on CGI in general, I’m just shitting on Marvel.”

“God fucking damn, Cyrus, you watched one Marvel movie.”

“ _And it was shit!_ ”

TJ closed his eyes and pursed his lips, clearly disapproving of Cyrus’ disdain towards his beloved superhero movies.

“I will admit, we should not have started your journey into the MCU with watching Iron Man 3, but it’s _absolutely_ ridiculous that you refuse to watch Winter Soldier with me. It’s by far the best Marvel movie, and also a _great_ standalone.”

“Well, you refuse to watch anything by Wes Anderson with me!” Cyrus said, feeling like he’d been pushed into a corner.

“Wes Anderson wants to bang the colour yellow and ‘the Royal Tenenbaums’ was a terrible movie.”

Cyrus huffed and turned to TJ.

“Like I said, _no_ taste.”

Cyrus took a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, and calmed himself down about this ridiculous discussion they’d been having for the last twenty minutes.

“Iowa really is _that_ boring that we have to resort to fighting about movies now, huh.” TJ said, softly, as if he was afraid that Cyrus would burst out in a rant about how Wes Anderson was a visionary.

“It really is,” Cyrus smiled, suddenly feeling completely at ease, “what can you even do in Iowa?”

“You can count down the hours until you’re in Illinois, I guess.” TJ said, “should we stop in Des Moines for lunch?”

“Fine with me,” Cyrus said stretching his arms out above his head, “if this fucking traffic stays this way I think we won’t even get to Des Moines by dinner time.”

“It’ll move soon,” TJ said, hopeful, “it has to.”

Cyrus unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out of his seat to take a soda from the cooler in the backseat. “Do you want anything?”

“Yes,” TJ said, and looked away from the traffic that wasn’t moving the slightest bit, “is the rest of my bagel still in there?”

“You’re _not_ eating the rest of the bagel that has been growing mould for two days.”

“Hell yes I am.” TJ said defiantly.

“No, you’re going to get food poisoning and I’m not about to play nurse for the rest of the trip. I’m throwing it out.”

TJ huffed, bummed about his bagel that he had paid four whole dollars for. “Fine. Is there anything back there that I can eat?”

Cyrus messed around for a bit, looking through the cooler and the big plastic bag that had been filled with snacks at the start of their trip, but was kind of empty now.

“There are some chips left, if you want. We really need to go shopping.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah, there’s only one bottle of Sprite left, and I’m taking it.”

TJ hummed and waited for Cyrus to sit back down to release the steering wheel and take the packet of chips from Cyrus.

“I’m bored.”

“Alright, what do you suppose I should do about that here in bumper to bumper traffic?”

“I don’t know,” TJ leaned back in his chair, “entertain me.”

Cyrus squinted at TJ, carefully taking a sip of his drink. “And what do I look like to you, dickhead? An episode of Breaking Bad? How am I supposed to entertain you?”

“Dance for me or something.”

Cyrus snorted, violently choking on his Sprite. He tried his very best to not spray his drink all over the dashboard of TJ’s car, but that was no easy feat, especially with TJ slapping his back to get him to stop coughing.

“Oh god,” Cyrus coughed out, “is this _really_ when the traffic decides to move? Good god.”

TJ looked from his friend to the road and waited to start the car until he was sure that Cyrus wasn’t dying, still relentlessly smacking Cyrus’ back. “Hang on Cyrus, we’re stopping in half an hour.”

“ _Drive, TJ, for fucks sake!_ ” Cyrus yelled, when a car behind them honked. TJ jumpstarted the car, and Cyrus, who had been hunched over, fell back in his seat, and took a shaky sip of his Sprite. “Goddamn.”

“You okay?” TJ asked. He took his hand off of the gearshift and rubbed Cyrus’ back to soothe him.

“Yeah, just put on some music or something,” Cyrus said, with his eyes still watering a bit, even though the coughing had stopped, “Fuck, never suggest I dance for you again, or it might kill me.”

TJ grinned, handing Cyrus his phone to plug in to the AUX. “Just put it on shuffle, there’s probably something to sing along to in my library.”

“As if I want to sing right now,” Cyrus croaked, but did as he was told, obediently unlocking TJ’s phone to look through his music.

“Wait,” TJ said, looking at Cyrus for a brief moment, “since when do you know my passcode?”

“I guessed right,” Cyrus said, scrolling through TJ’s playlists and settling for his shower playlist, closing his eyes when a familiar Imagine Dragons song started playing, “you have the music taste of a thirteen-year-old, I’ll tell you that.”

“I do not,” TJ said, his neck turning red, “Imagine Dragons is a good band, and you know it.”

Cyrus smiled, fiddling with TJ’s phone in his hands. “Your code is insanely predictable, and you know it. You’re such a mama’s boy.”

“Most people don’t know my mom, nor would they guess that I have her birthday as my passcode, Cy.” TJ defended himself, fully blushing after Cyrus called him a mama’s boy.

“Aha, but I am not most people,” Cyrus stuck out his tongue at TJ.

TJ smiled a private smile at the road in front of him. “No, you’re not.”

 

-

_“And tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef, that I’m a vegetarian and I ain’t fucking scared of him!”_ TJ drove past a board that welcomed them to Des Moines, while happily screaming along to a song with Cyrus, who was giving it his all, as if he were performing on the X-Factor, instead of the passenger seat of TJ’s car.

“That _has_ to be the best lyric of all time,” Cyrus said, sweating, flushed in the face, turning his head to look at TJ.

“I mean, the entire song is a classic.” TJ said, not daring to take his eyes of the road because of the busy intersection they were on, even though he really wanted to look at Cyrus, who was panting and smiling, “Do you want to get McDonalds or something?”

“Yes,” Cyrus replied immediately, “I’m so goddamn hungry.”

“Alright,” TJ nodded and took an exit, pulling into the parking lot. He turned off the car, which was immediately met with groaning from Cyrus.

“Do we _have_ to go inside? There’s a perfectly functional drive-through right there!”

“I want to stretch my legs for a bit.”

“No,” Cyrus threw his head back and closed his eyes, as if he was in pain, “can’t you just bring my food back to the car?”

“Nope,” TJ opened his door and got out, walking around the car to open the door for Cyrus. “Now get out of the car, you lazy piece of shit.”

Although Cyrus grumbled, he let TJ pull him out of his seat and followed him into the building.

TJ laughed and slung his arm around Cyrus’ shoulder.

“C’mon, it’ll be good for us to walk around for a bit.”

 

-

 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” TJ asked Cyrus, who was driving. Both boys had shed their hoodies, since the cool morning air had switched up for a sticky heat that filled the car, even though the AC did its very best to keep it out.

“No,” Cyrus said, fumbling for his sunglasses. “It wasn’t.”

 TJ picked his sunglasses, that Cyrus had left next to the stick shift, up and delicately putting them on Cyrus’ nose.

“I really don’t like to say I told you so, but…” TJ started before Cyrus interrupted him.

“The hell you don’t, it’s your favourite thing to say.”

“Shut up,” TJ laughed and leaned back in his seat, happy to not drive for an instant. He kept a close eye on Cyrus’ hands on the wheel, trying to prevent anything from happening to his beloved car.

Cyrus’ hands were nice, he noticed. Typical boyish, firm hands that held a secure grip on the wheel. His gaze travelled up Cyrus’ arms, and from his neck to his face, looking at his best friend, who was passionately talking with a huge smile on his face and his sight fixed on the road, no doubt making fun of him.

It was something TJ often caught himself doing, staring at Cyrus while he was driving, even though he felt a little guilty every time he did it.

TJ knew that Cyrus wouldn’t dare to take his eyes off the road when he was driving TJ’s car.

The Volkswagen was a piece of junk, TJ knew that as well as the next person, but it was also his most prized possession, after having saved up just enough to buy it himself.

Cyrus and Amber were the only other people allowed to drive it.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Cyrus asked, after bringing the car to a stop in front of a red light.

TJ looked away, turning red in the face. “No reason, I zoned out I think.”

“Oh, okay.” Cyrus said, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and looking ahead. “Do you want to pick some music?”

“Yeah,” TJ said, carding his fingers through his hair, feeling exposed all of a sudden. He took his phone and plugged it into the AUX, scrolling through his playlists with shaky fingers.

“It’s funny how much you’re touching your hair nowadays,” Cyrus turned to smile at TJ, “when you put all of that gel stuff in you used to avoid it like the plague.”

TJ huffed and accidentally tapped on a random song. He cursed himself for suddenly being nervous around Cyrus for seemingly no reason at all, while a song by The Federal Empire started playing.

“That is _not_ a road trip song, Teej.”

“It is too!” TJ defended himself, and to prove his point, he started to sing along.

_“I never liked your friends, I never want to see them again, You know that I love you but I never liked your friends!”_

“It’s not road trip material.”

TJ ignored him and kept singing at Cyrus, who was trying his hardest to focus on the road, even with TJ acting like a complete idiot next to him, dancing in his chair and belting out the chorus.

“Alright! Alright, I’ll admit it’s catchy, you can stop acting like that!” Cyrus laughed, turning the volume up, “you can start to calm down a bit, or I’ll start to believe you don’t like any of my friends.”

“Which friends?”

“Rude.”

TJ smiled his private smile and put his phone down, trusting it to not play a completely ridiculous song, and was almost immediately scrambling for his phone back when it started playing Camp Rock music.

 

-

 

Cyrus parked the car in the near-empty parking lot of a 7-Eleven, and turned to TJ.

“Alright, game-plan,” Cyrus started, phone in hand, ready to make a list, “what do we need?”

“Soda,” TJ said immediately, having already felt his dry throat for two consecutive hours, “cookies, Skittles, maybe some fruit?”

“Chips?” Cyrus suggested hopefully, only to be shot down by TJ.

“You’re _not_ eating chips in my car, Cyrus!”

 

-

 

“Don’t buy that, it’s fucking gross!”

“Get over yourself,” TJ said, putting a single packaged pickle in their shopping cart.

They were absolutely going over their budget, but they were growing boys and absolutely needed three packs of double stuffed Oreo’s, a jar of crunchy peanut butter, five packs of Skittles, twelve bottles of Sprite and instant noodles, in case they got hungry at night.

“I spill _one_ bag of chips in your car a year ago, and we still can’t buy _any_ , but you buy something that’ll make the entire car smell like vinegar for days? Alright.”

“You are so dramatic,” TJ said, pushing walking in front of Cyrus, and in passing tapping him on the ass like a racehorse, “go get your fucking chips.”

Cyrus all but ran to the chips aisle to pick out his favourite, leaving behind TJ, who was fondly shaking his head, pulling some M&M’s from the shelve.

He calmly walked over towards the exit of the store and carried on putting their food out on the conveyor belt, while Cyrus ran over with a bag of Salt and Pepper and two tubes of Pringles.

“I said one.”

“No, you didn’t, you never specified an amount. But look, I got your favourite!” Cyrus held up a can of Paprika flavoured Pringles and TJ begrudgingly let him put it on the belt.

“You are insufferable,” he said to Cyrus, while nodding at the cashier who was scanning their items.

“You love me,” Cyrus answered, poking TJ in the side, “you wouldn’t survive a day without me.”

The cashier was a small girl that was about their age, with thin white-blonde hair tied up into a ponytail that was probably required by store rules. She was clearly amused by how they were acting and tried to hide her smile by not looking them in the eye, but it wasn’t working at all. She looked down at their purchases as she scanned them and he took that as an opportunity to ruffle Cyrus’ hair, trying to ignore her watching them.

“Are you blushing?”

TJ opted to ignore his question, instead he lightly shoved Cyrus and scraped his throat. “Are you paying Mister Cannot-Survive-Without-Me?”

“Yes, I am,” Cyrus said confidently, patting down his pockets in search of his wallet before coming to the realisation that he forgot it in the car.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot my wallet in the car, can you pay?”

TJ hesitated and took a peek at the cashier, who was still looking at them as if she was watching a compelling soap opera, before speaking, in an attempt to make Cyrus blush in return.

“Of course I can pay, Little One.”

The ancient nickname had the desired effect. Cyrus’ blush shot up his face at lightning speed, making TJ crack up.

“You can’t just drop that nickname in public.”

“I will do as I damn well please,” TJ laughed at Cyrus, who was sputtering like a fish out of water. TJ was having a great time before he was interrupted by a soft female voice.

“Excuse me, sir? Are you ready to pay?”

TJ swivelled around on his feet and devoted his attention to the poor cashier, who had obviously been trying to get his attention for a while. “Yeah, I am so sorry, of course.”

TJ handed her a couple of twenty dollar bills and scraped his throat, while she was bagging their purchases.

They each took a bag and started to leave before the cashier’s voice drew their attention once more.

“I’m sorry, but can I just say that you two are the cutest couple I have ever seen?”

Cyrus’ blush that had started to fade away suddenly was back at full force, and he started to choke out that they weren’t a couple, while TJ was at a loss for words.

“God, uh, thank you, but it’s not like that.” Cyrus stuttered out, looking at TJ for support, but he was clearly preoccupied by looking awkward and not doing anything.

“Oh,” she said, pushing her glasses up her nose, “I’m so sorry, I just thought…”

Her words faded out, and the air was filled with awkward tension, eventually broken by TJ grabbing their bags and walking through the exit to the car.

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to offend,” she said to Cyrus, who still stood there, dumbfounded.

“It’s fine, I mean, we’re best friends, so…” His voice faded out as he looked through the tall glass exit doors at TJ, who was refilling the cooler and snack bag on the back seats with the food they just bought and occasionally looked over at Cyrus. “In fact, I’m going to find him, have a nice day!”

Cyrus carded his fingers through his hair, and hurried out of the exit, red in the face and purposefully not looking back at the cashier.

He climbed in the passenger seat, with TJ already in front of the wheel, plugging his phone into the AUX.

Neither boy said anything as TJ pulled out of the parking lot and drove onto the street, as a soft guitar melody played in the background.

“Are we talking about it?” Cyrus asked after a while. The most communication he had gotten from TJ in the past hour had been one-word responses and grunts, and frankly, he was getting sick of it.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Obviously there is, if you’re still so pressed about it, an hour after it happened! You haven’t said more than two consecutive words to me since we left the store and it’s bothering me, so I want to fucking talk about it.”

“It’s just,” TJ started, suddenly looking tired, defeated even, “it’s just _weird_ that she thought we were a couple.”

“I mean, we were using pet names and proclaiming our love for each other in front of her, I can understand how she got the impression.”

Cyrus undid his seat belt and climbed out of his seat to rummage around in the cooler. He settled for a bottle of Sprite and a packet of M&M’s that he put back after TJ sent a death glare his way, that clearly was meant as a warning for Cyrus to _not_ touch TJ’s M&M’s. TJ smiled when Cyrus reappeared from where he was looking through the snack bag and settled in his seat again, this time holding a pack of chocolate chip cookies.

“You _cannot_ call me ‘Little One’ in public ever again, though,” Cyrus said out of the blue, making TJ crack up.

“But can I still call you that it in private?”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you call me in private.”

“Good to know,” TJ smiled, briefly looking over at Cyrus and smiling when he was met with a phone in his face, no doubt for an Instagram update.

 

-

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alrighty, i finally got this chapter up  
> if you missed it i wrote a holiday fic, which was fun, but stalled this update a teeny bit  
> do you like the added photos?
> 
> come say hi on tumblr [nineteenohtwo](https://nineteenohtwo.tumblr.com/)
> 
> leave a comment telling me what you thought x


	4. BOYS DON'T CRY - THE CURE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAD LANGUAGE ALSO A REFERENCE TO A GREAT MOVIE 10 POINTS IF YOU KNOW WHICH ONE

TJ took a left, and slowly came to a stop in front of a red light. He took that opportunity to plug his phone into the AUX and made sure to double check the volume before he even dared to put on a song, careful not to wake up Cyrus.

He hesitated for a while but eventually settled on a movie score playlist Cyrus had made years ago, that was filled with soft soundtracks of films they had watched together. Even though he rarely listened to it, he came back to it every once in a while to see if Cyrus had added any new songs.

When he pressed shuffle, the song that came up was very clearly a song from that French ‘Amélie’ movie Cyrus loved so much and TJ didn’t understand. The car was filled with the sound of rain on the windscreen and a mysterious melody made solely on accordion and piano.

A wistful song for a cold, dreary morning, TJ thought.

The walls at their previous motel had been thin as hell, and even though TJ had fallen asleep practically the instant his head had hit the pillow, Cyrus had had more trouble coming to terms with their next door neighbours, who apparently preferred _other_ activities above a healthy night’s sleep.

He had stayed awake until 4AM, which was highly unusual for Cyrus, who loved getting up early and religiously stuck to his sleeping schedule.

Even though it had been Cyrus’ turn to drive, TJ had taken one long look at Cyrus, taken the keys from him and gotten behind the wheel, which was met with heavy protest from Cyrus’ end, but he begrudgingly agreed after TJ promised to let Cyrus drive after he slept for an hour.

TJ had immediately learned he made a good call however, when more or less two minutes after that, he spotted a drive-through Starbucks and turned to ask Cyrus what he wanted, only to find him sound asleep on the chair.

The soft piano tune that was coming through the speakers suddenly got interrupted by TJ’s ringtone, that was still the standard iPhone ringtone because he never bothered to change it. Without taking his eyes from the road he accepted the call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, TJ?”

“Andi, hi! How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Andi chuckled and scraped her throat, “I tried to call Cy twice already, but he didn’t pick up.”

“Oh, yeah, Cyrus is knocked out cold on the passenger’s seat.” TJ snuck a glance at Cyrus who was lightly snoring, looking tiny and peaceful in TJ’s oversized basketball hoodie. “He had a rough time last night, didn’t sleep a wink.”

“How come?” Andi asked, “Actually, never mind, I don’t think I want to know. I was just calling to check up on you guys because we hadn’t heard from you in a while.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, driving has made us so tired all the time,” TJ said, trying to think of something fun they did that wasn’t piling into a single twin bed to watch YouTube videos, “we went to the Ferris Bueller museum yesterday.”

“Ferris Bueller? What’s that?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s Cyrus’ favourite movie.”

TJ knew that Andi hadn’t seen it. Cyrus had complained about it before.

“Oh, right, well, I’ll call back when Cyrus is awake,” Andi started to round up the conversation, but TJ wasn’t done with her yet.

“Actually, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about while he’s asleep,” TJ said, lowering his voice to be sure not to wake Cyrus up, as this wasn’t something he wanted him to hear. “What was up with the double bed?”

“Oh, that,” Andi said, and her voice went up half an octave, “Uh, it was an accident.”

“See, that’s what Cyrus told me, and I didn’t believe him then and I don’t believe it now.”

Andi sighed, and didn’t answer for a while, clearly trying to think of something to say.

“So…” TJ said, trying to coax an answer out of her.

“God, alright,” Andi said, taking a deep breath, “I’m going to give it to you straight.”

“Alright.”

“We thought-”

“ _We?_ ” TJ interrupted.

“Buffy, Jonah, Amber and I thought,” Andi said through her teeth, “that one of you should make a move already.”

_Good god, Amber was in on this?_

“What the fuck! I… You… What?” TJ sputtered, horrified.

On one hand, he was grateful that Cyrus hadn’t told him the truth just before they had to share a bed because that’s one way to make things awkward _real_ fast, but on the other it felt weird now being in on a secret his best friend had tried to keep from him for obvious reasons.

“Why are you meddling?” He managed to stutter out after a while.

“Funny, that’s exactly what Cyrus said. Clearly an intervention was needed.”

“I don’t need you to _intervene-”_ TJ started, before he got interrupted by Andi.

“No, TJ, you _do_ need us to intervene, because it’s torture watching you two dance around each other without any one of you making a move. It’s exhausting and frankly, I’m not here for it.”

“Cyrus doesn’t like me like that.” TJ said matter-of-factly. He gripped the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white, and he snuck a glance at Cyrus still sleeping soundly, blissfully unaware of the chaos that was happening in TJ’s head.

“ _Cyrus doesn’t like me like that_ ,” Andi repeated in a mocking tone, but not without a clear undertone of sympathy, “but you like Cyrus like that, don’t you, TJ? You don’t have to lie to me.” Her voice was soft and understanding, and this was a risky conversation to have with Cyrus in the car.

TJ was at a loss for words. The road, all of the signs he passed by, the GPS dictating random turns he forgot to make, it all meant nothing in that moment.

“He’s my best friend,” he managed to stutter out after a brief moment of silence. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the car driving, Andi’s muted breaths that came out of the loudspeakers when she was thinking of something to say, and TJ could hear his heart beating in his ears, as if he just ran a mile, or maybe five.

“I know,” Andi whispered into the phone, her voice softening, “but dare to give yourself a chance, TJ. Don’t give up on the game before you’ve even started to play, alright.”

TJ could feel tears welling up in his eyes, but pushed them down and scraped his throat.

“Alright.”

“Okay TJ, we’ll talk later, Amber is here. I’ll call you back this evening.”

“Sure.” TJ said, already thinking of a way to hide that phone call from Cyrus, but then started to freak out again. “You _have_ to keep this conversation from Cyrus. You have to promise me, Andi. Promise?”

“Promise.” Andi said, and hung up the phone, leaving TJ alone with his thoughts, the endless roads and a wonderful, sleeping boy as his sole companions.

 

-

 

“Cyrus, wake up, buddy.” TJ put his arm out and poked Cyrus, who stirred for the first time in for hours.

“Hmm?”

“It’s noon, I thought we could grab a bite.”

“ _It’s noon?_ ” Cyrus repeated, _“_ You said you were going to wake me up in an hour!”

“Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking and lost track of time. Besides, you looked like you could use the rest.”

“That’s true,” Cyrus said, and he stretched, sitting up straight in his chair. He rubbed his eyes and took his phone out of his pocket.

“Oh, Andi called me three times.”

“Yeah, she called me too, we talked for a while when you were asleep.” TJ said. He tried to keep his facial expressions as neutral as possible.

“You should’ve woken me up! I would’ve loved to talk to her.”

“Yeah… No… It’s fine I had to ask her some things anyway.”

Cyrus turned, his interest piqued. His hair was sticking up in random places, and he looked incredibly warm and cosy, engulfed in TJ’s hoodie.

“Oh, what did you talk about?”

“Just… Amber… things…” TJ said and let his voice trail off, while he scouted their surroundings for a place to eat. “How do you feel about that diner?”

“Fine by me.”

TJ could feel Cyrus’ eyes on him, because much like Cyrus himself, TJ couldn’t lie for shit and Cyrus wasn’t buying any of it.

They held the door open for Cyrus and followed him inside, sitting down at the one table that was available, but sadly also happened to be very greasy and in the middle of the crowded diner.

“You want to split a pizza?”

“Sure.”

Not long after they sat down a peppy young girl with brown hair that was braided back came up to them, and they ordered their pizza and drinks.

“You look better than this morning.”

“I could use the rest,” Cyrus said, and briefly took TJ’s hand to lightly squeeze it, “thank you for driving for so long to let me sleep.”

“Gladly,” TJ said, and smiled at Cyrus.

Cyrus craned his neck to look at the servers finding their way through the labyrinth of tables, wishing that one of them had their pizza.

Cyrus yawned, and settled back in his chair, looking at TJ, who was scrolling down the pictures in his camera roll, and was choosing a picture to upload to Instagram. TJ’s fluffy hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it back, putting his head in his hand, and showing the picture he picked out to Cyrus.

“How about this one?”

“I like it, when did you take it?”

“Around 9AM, I think.”

TJ scrunched up his nose, clearly trying to pick a filter. He still looked good, Cyrus noted, even though his glasses were dirty and he had massive bags under his eyes. Cyrus’ felt his heart beat at a hundred miles an hour in his chest when TJ looked up from his phone and shot him a blinding smile.

_Did he like TJ?_

“I found the best filter.”

“What are you captioning it?”

“Eh, you’ll see,” TJ said, uploading the picture and putting his phone down on the table. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Cyrus said quickly, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks, and took a sip of his drink. “Oh, fuck yes, I think that’s our pizza.”

 

-

 

 

 

 

-

 

“Can you believe we’re almost in New York?”

“No, because we still have a way to go. We’re almost in Detroit. We still have 15 hours to go _and_ we’re staying in Detroit for two days.”

“Why are we doing that again?”

“What do you mean?” TJ sputtered, “It was your fucking idea to stay in Detroit for a couple of days.”

“Should’ve picked Chicago.” Cyrus said under his breath, and pressing next on the song that was just starting to play. “Bet you had a great time picking out all of the music this morning.”

TJ laughed and turned around to take a soda from the cooler in the backseat.

“You want anything?”

“Just a Sprite.”

TJ sat back down in his seat and handed Cyrus his Sprite, taking a sip from his own.

“I actually put on your film music playlist.”

“Oh!” Cyrus said, beaming. He almost forgot TJ knew about that playlist, even though TJ was the only one who consistently followed all of his playlists. “What movie?”

“Amélie.”

“I love that movie.”

“I know you do,” TJ said, wrestling with the Pringles can, unable to fit his hand in it.

“Look at you, mister hypocrite, eating chips in the car.”

“Fuck you,” TJ said, popping five entire Pringles chips at the same time in his mouth, “my car, my rules.”

Cyrus laughed, slowing to a stop in front of a red light, and taking that opportunity to take a big gulp from his bottle of Sprite. He tried to press next on the song again, but TJ swatted his hand away.

“Nope, Goodman, my pick now.”

“You had the whole morning to listen to your music.”

“You were asleep the whole morning! And I listened to _your_ playlist!”

“Fine.” Cyrus grumbled, but his face brightened up when TJ switched to a song he loved. “Ooh! I love the Cure!”

“I know.”

Cyrus sang along, moving wildly in his seat while an amused TJ watched from the side. He contemplated filming Cyrus, but decided not to as Cyrus hadn’t filmed him jamming out to Fall Out Boy a day earlier.

“Fuck, Cyrus! You need to take that exit!”

“Fuck! Shit!” Cyrus cursed and only just managed to signal and turn to exit off the highway and in the direction they needed to go to get to their motel.

“Dude,” TJ leaned back in his chair, “I’m only ever putting on songs you enjoy when there are no exits within a miles reach.”

“Put some of your shitty contemporary songs on.” Cyrus said, now paying attention to the GPS.

“You’re a virgin who can’t drive.”

“Fair.”

 

-

 

“Hello!” A young man with bright red hair that clashed terribly with his lime green uniform said. “Can I have your name?”

“I think we have a reservation under Goodman.”

“Okay, I’ll check,” he said and pushed his glasses further up his nose, typing away, “oh God, I’m sorry, it seems like we’ve double booked the room you were supposed to be in.” He wiped his forehead to rid it of sweat, and checked his laptop screen again. “Okay, we have a free room I can put you in, but it’s a one bed room.”

“We’ll take it,” Cyrus said, smiling at the receptionist who looked very nervous, “it’s no problem.”

He gave Cyrus their room key and seemed very grateful that Cyrus didn’t make a scene.

“What’s going on?” TJ whispered in Cyrus’ ear, while the receptionist explained where their room was by using an abundance of hand gestures.

“Double booking, so we have to share a bed again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, nodding at the receptionist who was finally done with his explanation, so they walked towards the elevators. “Why does this only happen to us?”

“I don’t know,” TJ said, pushing the button for the second floor.

 

-

 

“At least the room is nice,” TJ said, lying face down on the bed, hugging his pillow.

When they got to the room and turned on the light, they were pleasantly surprised by the modern design of the room, and the absence of any staining or weird smells. The bathroom had a bathtub and a fancy showerhead.

“True,” Cyrus said, googling where the nearest KFC was. “There’s a KFC about a mile away.”

“Sick,” TJ said, his words muffled by his pillow. “Not really feeling getting up though.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Cyrus said, lying down next to TJ, “we can’t order take-out in a motel.”

“Shut up, I’m tired,” TJ said and turned his head to look at Cyrus, “I drove for a long time today.”

“That’s true,” Cyrus whispered, “do you want to take a nap?”

“Yeah,” TJ whispered back, even though he had no idea why they were whispering. “That would be nice.”

TJ rolled over on his back and within a few minutes he was out like a light and lightly snoring. Cyrus on the other hand felt well rested from his time sleeping in the car, and was tossing and turning, but didn’t feel sleepy at all, so he sat up straight in bed, and took his phone to waste some time.

According to Instagram Andi, Buffy, Marty and Amber hung out together, and Cyrus suddenly missed them terribly. He missed having Buffy close to vent about his feelings, he missed having Andi around for advice, he missed Amber to mindlessly hang out with and he even missed Marty and Jonah, who always managed to rope him into outdoors and sports related activities he didn’t want to do.

It had been long enough since they last spoke, and before he knew it the door of the room automatically locked behind him when he pressed ‘call’ on Andi’s contact.

“Hello?”

“Cyrus! Hi! Oh my god, how are you?”

“I’m fine, I guess. You called?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to know how you’re doing!” Cyrus could hear Buffy and Marty arguing in the background. “Isn’t it exciting, your road trip?”

“Oh, yeah, very exciting,” Cyrus said, his mind automatically drifting to TJ sleeping in the room and the weird surge of feelings he felt for him while they were eating, “TJ’s asleep in the room right now, I’m in the hallway.”

“The polar opposite of this morning,” Andi laughed, and her tone turned more serious in an instant. “Did you hear any of that conversation, by the way?”

“No, I didn’t,” Cyrus said, “but TJ acted weird as hell after it.”

“Oh yeah, we just talked about… Basketball…”

“Either one of you is lying to me, or you’re both lying to me because that’s not what TJ said after I woke up.”

A silence fell between them, and Cyrus checked his phone to see if he lost connection, because he could hear nothing on Andi’s side of the phone call.

“Cyrus?”

“Yeah?”

“I… I went inside so, uh, am by myself now, no one can hear, but I can’t tell you about what we said to each other this morning, I promised TJ.”

“You _promised TJ?_ Since when are you and TJ close?”

“Cyrus, I promised, I’m not talking about it anymore. Is that the only thing you wanted to talk about?”

“No,” Cyrus realised. He wanted to freak out to Andi and Buffy about his feelings for TJ, “No, but can you get Buffy?”

“Yeah, sure,” Andi said, her voice trailing off, and he could hear her open a door and yell Buffy’s name, “she’s coming.”

“Great,” Cyrus whispered and took a deep breath to prepare for the conversation he was about to have.

“Cyrus! What’s up!” Buffy’s voice was extremely loud and extremely enthusiastic.

“Hey, Buffy,” his voice was noticeably more timid than either Buffy or Andi, and he could practically feel them exchanging a look. “Uh, nothing’s up. Or down. Things are just… You know, things.”

“Okay,” Andi said, “what did you want to talk about?”

“Uh, I, uh, oh god,” he stuttered trying to ready himself for saying the words out loud, “I think I like TJ. As like, more than friends.”

“I mean… We called it like a year ago?” Andi said, “Are you alright?”

“No, I’m kind of freaking out.”

“There’s no reason to freak out, I promise, Cyrus.” Andi sussed, desperately trying to calm him down.

“Easy, Cyrus,” Buffy chimed in, “it’s obvious that he likes you back.”

“I don’t fucking know?” Cyrus said, and it came out as a question, “I don’t know what he’s thinking?”

He felt his phone vibrate and saw that TJ was calling. He probably woke up and wondered where Cyrus was. “Oh god, he’s calling, I should probably go back.”

“Okay, but take it easy, Cy,” Buffy said, “we’ll talk later, alright?”

“Alright,” Cyrus sighed, and ended the call while he let himself back into the room.

 

-

 

 

 

-

 

 

-

 

“Hey, where were you?”

“Just… taking a walk…” Cyrus said, purposefully leaving it as vague as he could, he wasn’t about to let TJ in on the fact that he had just realised he liked him and felt like the world had shifted on its axis.

“Okay,” TJ laughed, “did you have fun walking a hundred foot up and down for half an hour?”

“Yeah, it was… Uh, fun.” Cyrus felt extremely awkward, as if he couldn’t talk to TJ anymore without embarrassing himself, which was ridiculous since they had been friends since they were little, little children. “Did you have a good power nap?”

“I’m all rested, and ready to walk a mile to KFC.”

“Great,” Cyrus said and started to look through his backpack for a hoodie, anything to let him turn away from TJ for a moment, even if it was just a second. He felt like his face could easily be replaced with a neon sign that said ‘HAS A CRUSH ON TJ KIPPEN’, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

“Is something wrong?” TJ said, his tone serious and concerned.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Cyrus sighed, and after a moment added, “I talked to Andi and Buffy on the phone.”

“Oh,” TJ said and looked extremely nervous all of a sudden, “did Andi say anything about this morning?”

“No, she said you had a nice talk about basketball, so you’re lying to me, so that’s great.”

“Fuck,” TJ paled and took a step closer to Cyrus, who leaned back a tiny bit, but just enough to make TJ freeze, “I promise I’ll tell you soon, but I just can’t right now. Sorry.”

Cyrus’ felt his defiant posture sag a bit at how sad TJ sounded, thinking it must’ve been a really serious conversation, and he cursed himself for making TJ feel guilty.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t try to put my nose in your business all of the time, you deserve to have private conversations.”

TJ smiled hesitantly and took another step closer to Cyrus, who let him this time, only to be engulfed in a hug seconds later. Cyrus felt TJ put his chin on his head and heard him mumble a quiet “I’m sorry, Cy,” and he felt himself unable to feel even a little bit of anger towards TJ.

“Let me make it up to you,” TJ said pulling back from the hug so he could look Cyrus in the face, “screw KFC.”

“What, you want to go to Subway or something?”

“No, let’s go to a real restaurant.”

“I can’t afford a real restaurant.”

“I’m making it up to you,” TJ said with a small smile on his face, “my treat.”

Cyrus immediately shook his head no, thinking that that sounded an awful lot like a date, and he didn’t want to dare let himself hope.

“No, I can’t accept that, Teej.”

“C’mon Little One,” TJ poked Cyrus in the side, while watching him squirm and blush, “I insist. I have some money saved up from work.”

TJ kept poking and tickling Cyrus until he screamed out laughing.

“Okay! Okay! Fine! I’ll go to the restaurant!”

“Aha! That’s what I wanted to hear. Let’s get some decent clothes from our suitcase, and then we’ll make a reservation.”

“You know Teej, you can’t use that stupid nickname to get your way all of the time,” Cyrus said, extremely red in the face from laughing.

“I could always resort back to calling you a virgin who can't drive.”

“I'll take little one, thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy  
> sorry i've taken so long to upload, i have not and will not abandon this fic  
> this chapter is kinda building up to the next one, no spoilers  
> for the tumblr following you will recognise the "hello?" i spoiled for you ;)  
> come say hi on tumblr at [nineteenohtwo](https://nineteenohtwo.tumblr.com/), my prompts are always open
> 
> please leave a comment telling me what you thought of it, i love to read them x


	5. TESSELLATE - ALT-J

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long lol

“For two, yes. Under the name Kippen, please.”

TJ put down the phone and threw it on the bed, relieved.

“What place wanted to take us?”

“The Italian one. We probably should’ve realised that making a reservation the evening of isn’t exactly convenient.”

“I don’t care, I love Italian.”

“Great,” TJ smiled at him and lied down on the bed next to Cyrus and grabbed his phone, “we have to be there at eight thirty, and it’s now seven, so I’m just going to take a shower. You can go after me?”

“Sure,” Cyrus said, scrolling down Instagram and _desperately_ not trying to think about TJ in the shower. “Leave your stuff in the shower, I didn’t bring mine.”

“Of course you didn’t bring yours, you never bring yours,” TJ peeked his head out of the bathroom door, “I’m going to go bankrupt buying so much shampoo if you keep stealing it.”

“I can always not shower and smell like your dusty car the entire time you still have to spend with me.”

“I’ve said this before but there’s _nothing_ wrong with the smell of my car.”

“Just go shower, goddamn,” Cyrus waved TJ away with his hand and focussed on his phone again, frantically texting Andi and Buffy for advice.

 

** Good Hair Crew **

         **Cyrus**

Gonna need help

**Buffy**

?

**Andi**

Elaborate

**Cyrus**

We’re going to a restaurant

Like a fancy Italian one

**Andi**

Ooooh! Cool

Question though

How are you gonna afford that

You made me buy you ramen last month

**Cyrus**

TJ insists on paying

**Buffy**

Oh my god

So you’re going on a date?

Are you dating?

**Andi**

Holy shit

What are you wearing

**Cyrus**

The blue shirt

Like the one Andi bought me

Also

It’s not a date

He says it’s to make it up to me that he lied to my face

Like Andi did too

**Andi**

I’d rather not lie to you

But I’m confident you’ll find out either way

I love that shirt btw

Also it is SO a date

**Buffy**

It’s very cute

We can go on triple dates when you get back

**Andi**

As if we weren’t already doing that

Cyrus and TJ are super clingy even if they aren’t

You know

“official”

**Buffy**

Oh yes

I KNOW

Don’t let each other alone for a moment

Even in the bathroom

**Cyrus**

Okay fuck you

That was one time

 

“Your turn,” TJ came out of the bathroom, wearing a wife-beater and a pair of jeans, towelling his hair dry in the doorway, “I’m so fucking pissed that I forgot my gel at home.”

“Dude, we could’ve easily bought gel at the _five_ grocery stores we have stopped at.”

“Well yeah, but like, I buy this special one at my hairdressers and like…”

“Like what?”

“Like, you said you liked my hair like this, so I thought… You know, why not leave it like this for a while?”

Cyrus felt the heat shoot up his cheeks, and he shot a nervous smile at TJ.

“I do like it like this. Now get out of the doorway, I have to go shower.”

“Relax, we have time,” TJ poked Cyrus in the side. “You can chill for once.”

“Shut up,” Cyrus pushed TJ out of the doorway and walked into the bathroom, “I’m the most chill person in the world.”

“Yeah, sure,” TJ smiled. He walked over to the chair where they had put their nice shirts they got out of their suitcase and put it on. Cyrus watched him for a while, then shook himself out of it and closed the bathroom door.

 

-

 

TJ was buttoning up his shirt when the sound of the shower started.

He scrambled for his phone and quietly left the room when he was sure Cyrus couldn’t hear him and dialled Andi as fast as he could.

“Help me.”

“Hi TJ, how are you doing? What do you think about the weather?”

“We’re not in the same state, we don’t have the same weather!” TJ hissed into the phone, “I’m fucking stressed!”

“Because of your date?”

“Date? Did Cyrus say it was a date?”

“He didn’t. Calm the fuck down, TJ. Where is Cyrus? Can he hear you?”

“No,” TJ sighed, sitting down against the wall next to their hotel room door, “he’s in the shower and I’m outside of the room.”

“Damn,” Andi said and TJ could hear her shushing Amber and Marty who were making noise in the background. “That bad, huh?”

“I’m just a _little bit_ nervous.”

“Nothing to be nervous about, Teej,” Andi reassured him, “shoot your shot, I promise it’ll go well.”

“ _You promise?”_

“Yeah, I promise.”

“Did he tell you he likes me?”

“You know I can’t answer that TJ. Just try to enjoy tonight!”

“I will, I will,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes, “I just don’t want to fuck it up, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get you,” Andi said, “But what’s life without a little risk every now and then?”

 

-

 

TJ drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for Cyrus to return from the motel room where he forgot his phone. He made sure to plug his phone into the AUX before Cyrus could get to the car.

He scrolled through his dozens of Spotify playlists, seemingly not satisfied with any at the moment until he got to the very bottom of the list and his thumb hovered over a playlist he hadn’t touched in a little while, one that he kept adding songs to but forgot to actually play.

It was a playlist Cyrus and TJ had haphazardly thrown together in ten minutes when they had an impromptu picnic with their friends, and every once in a while TJ would add songs to it if they reminded him of Cyrus. He pressed shuffle and a song by Hozier started playing as Cyrus opened the door and got in.

“Sorry it took so long I think it fell because I found it under the bed, also this fucking neighbourhood gives me chills, next time we’re going on a road trip I’m checking everything on Google Street View, I feel like we’re gonna get fucking shot- Is that Hozier?”

“Yes,” TJ said, choosing to not get into the possibility of them getting shot, “I’m playing our picnic playlist.”

“From junior year?”

“You know the one.”

“But I didn’t put any Hozier on that?”

TJ stared at the road in front of him and hoped his blush wasn’t too noticeable in the dark car.

“No, uh, I sometimes put songs that remind me of you on there if I find a good one.” He scraped his throat because he felt his voice rise an octave, like it usually did when he got nervous, “Can you put in the address?”

“Yeah, sure,” Cyrus said, opening up Google Maps, and biting his lip in contemplation before adding, “I think that’s really, uhm, sweet of you.”

TJ cast a brief look at Cyrus and smiled before focussing on the road in front of him.

They sat in a pleasant almost silence, only sometimes interrupted by Cyrus giving TJ directions. Cyrus texted Andi and Buffy while keeping an eye on the GPS, while TJ just focussed on finding the way in an unfamiliar city.

The song faded out and another started, sparking Cyrus’ interest.

“What’s this?”

“Uh, Sufjan Stevens, I think.”

“What’s it called?”

“Uh,” TJ hesitated, knowing damn well what the song was called, but not wanting to make it weird, “it’s called, uh, ‘Make Out In My Car’.”

“Oh,” Cyrus blushed, “and it reminded you of me?”

“No!” TJ yelled, panicked, “or like, the melody reminded me of you?”

“Oh.” Cyrus bit his lip and turned all of his attention to his phone, “You need to make a right here.”

 

-

 

TJ parked his shitty Volkswagen between a BMW and a Mercedes and looked out at the restaurant they had made a reservation at.

Even though he had visited their site and knew he could really afford it, he had to resist the urge to pull up his phone and go through the menu again to make sure he didn’t accidentally misread and would embarrass himself, or worse, Cyrus when the bill came.

“So, are you getting out of the car?” Cyrus had already unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door, before looking back at TJ who was frozen in his seat.

“Yeah, of course,” TJ blushed and got out of the car. He double checked his outfit, suddenly grateful that Amber made him bring his fancy shoes and a nice shirt because ‘ _You never know when you’re gonna need it, TJ!’._ “Ready to go in?”

“Yeah!” Cyrus walked alongside TJ into the restaurant, where he immediately was halted by a nice young girl who insisted on taking his coat.

“Teej, this is like… _really fancy_. Like, insanely above our price range.”

“Eh,” TJ said while handing over his coat, “just don’t order a full lobster menu with a 100 dollar Bordeaux and we’ll be just fine.”

“Alright,” Cyrus laughed, “we’ll stick with water for the evening, I guess.”

They walked into the main dining area of the restaurant, that was filled with middle-aged couples and posh families. They made quiet conversation in the doorway until they were finally addressed by a snooty looking old man in a tuxedo.

“Excuse me, young men, have you made a reservation?”

TJ immediately straightened out his posture.

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir,” the man chuckled to himself, “you’re a polite one. What’s the name, son?”

“Kippen, sir.”

The man pulled out an iPad from seemingly nowhere and started scrolling down the list of reservations.

“I’ll see… Yes, there you are,” he looked at them over his thin, gold rimmed glasses and shot them a thin-lipped smile, “follow me.”

He sat them at a small table for two rather in the back of the restaurant, pulling out their chairs for them, and gave them a nod when they were finally seated.

“Holy fuck this is fancy.”

“I know right,” TJ giggled, and opened his menu, “but like the pizza is 11 dollars, we’ll be just fine.”

“As long as you’re paying,” Cyrus smiled at TJ while going over the list of pizzas and pastas the restaurant was serving, “this is like a proper Italian place, huh? I love it.”

“Hold your fire until we get our food, who knows it could be awful.” TJ joked and raised his eyebrows.

“No, I can assure the food here is great,” a third voice interrupted their conversation. They looked up to see a blond boy standing at their table, holding a tiny notebook. “I’m Reed, I’ll be your waiter tonight.”

“He was just joking, we read the reviews online,” Cyrus said, closing his menu and looking at TJ, desperately trying to change the subject, “did you decide what you want yet?”

TJ cast a quick look at the pastas again, but decided to go with his first choice and closed the menu too.

“Yeah I’ll have the Chef’s Choice gnocchi and a Sprite.”

Reed wrote it down and looked at Cyrus.

“And what do _you_ want?”

TJ’s ears perked up at the change of inflection in the waiter’s tone and raised his eyebrows at Cyrus, who was looking dumbfounded and staring at Reed, a clear indication that he had also picked up on what was implied.

“I’ll have the Caprese pizza and uh, a sparkling water.”

“Better choice that your boyfriend’s, if I’m being honest,” he said, writing it down, “also your pronunciation is great. Are you Italian?”

“No, I’m Jewish, and he, uh, isn’t my boyfriend” Cyrus said, avoiding TJ’s eyes and handing his and TJ’s menus over to the waiter, who raised his eyebrows at the response and departed with a wink in Cyrus’ direction.

TJ watched Reed walk over to the bar to type in their order, looking back at Cyrus once, but eventually disappearing in the kitchen.

“What was _that_?” TJ chuckled nervously, looking at Cyrus, who was still staring at the kitchen doors Reed walked through moments before, “That guy is into you.”

“Do you really think so?” Cyrus said, biting his lip, “I think he’s just being friendly.”

“Do you _want_ him to be into you?” TJ asked, nervously staring down at Cyrus’ hands.

What if Andi had been wrong, and Cyrus didn’t like him back? What if he had misinterpreted the situation entirely?

“I don’t know,” Cyrus raised his eyebrows, “it’s kind of flattering if someone is into you, don’t you think?”

“I guess,” TJ mumbled.

“Why do you care anyway?”

“I don’t,” TJ said weakly, “I just don’t like him.”

“Why not? He seems nice?”

“He just looks sus.”

“ _Sus?_ ”

“Yeah, he’s like, you know, the kid that plays with his parent’s gun. Or like says slurs while playing Fortnite.”

“What the fuck, Teej, we don’t even know him! You can let it go, it’s dumb to even talk about this.” Cyrus hissed, before closing his eyes and rubbing his nose bridge in frustration, wondering on how this stupid conversation had gone awry so fast, “You know what? Let’s just change the subject to something else entirely.”

“Alright,” TJ smiled, “let’s talk about how Wes Anderson is a shit director.”

“Oh fuck you.”

“He’s ridiculous! You paused in front of a pink wall for at least ten minutes because it looked ‘ _so Wes Anderson_ ’ and you wanted a picture.”

“Well, you watch Family Guy, so clearly, you have no understanding of good cinema.”

 

-

 

“And… Here is your Caprese,” Reed said, putting Cyrus’ food down after skilfully balancing multiple plates on his arms, “enjoy your meal, and if you want anything else, don’t hesitate to ask!” He smiled at Cyrus and turned around to give the table behind them their food.

“This looks so fucking good,” Cyrus said, “I’m going to Instagram this.”

“Christ,” TJ watched, amused, as Cyrus tried to get the perfect angle for his Instagram post, “can’t take you anywhere.”

“Oh no, I’m going to have to find someone else to wine and dine me, if you’re not taking me anywhere,” Cyrus said, snapping a couple of pictures, “maybe I can ask the waiter.”

“Oh piss off,” TJ said, lightly kicking Cyrus under the table, “don’t even joke about that.”

“I _can_ and _will_ joke about that. Remember how you were so angry at me when I didn’t like the waitress that flirted with you back on our very first day?”

“That was different.”

“How was that different? She was a lot ruder to me than this guy is to you.”

“Let’s just _not_ talk about this, and just eat.”

Cyrus tilted his head and scrunched up his eyebrows while he looked at TJ, who stubbornly kept his eyes on his pasta, and hesitantly dug into his pizza, that was every bit as delicious as it looked.

TJ shovelled his gnocchi into his mouth, glaring at Reed, who was keeping an eye on Cyrus from the other side of the restaurant and had the _nerve_ to raise his eyebrows with a smirk on his smug face when he caught TJ staring.

“How’s your pasta?”

“Really good,” TJ said, even though he could barely taste it, “yeah, it’s like, uh, creamy.”

“ _Creamy?_ Are you okay?”

“Fine,” TJ said, sipping his Sprite, “do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s really good pizza, really fresh,” Cyrus said, looking at TJ, who seemed to be distracted by something behind Cyrus.

He rolled his eyes and waved at TJ, trying to capture his attention, but after that attempt failed, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, sending a text to Andi and Buffy.

 

** Good Hair Crew **

**Cyrus**

It’s not going well

**Andi**

:(

How come?

**Cyrus**

Idk

He’s being really distant and pissed at the waiter

Because he thinks he’s flirting with me

**Buffy**

Ooh, jealous TJ

**Andi**

That’s cute tho

**Cyrus**

He’s not really talking to me

Idk

It’s just going

Eh

The food’s real good

 

“Teej, what’s got you so distracted?”

“What?” TJ said, shaking his head to clear it, “nothing’s got me distracted.”

“Well, you’ve barely talked to me this entire evening.”

“What? Yes I have? I’ve talked to you?”

“TJ,” Cyrus said, pushing his ankle against TJ’s, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” TJ sighed, “I’m just being dumb, let’s just eat.”

 

-

 

“Coffee?”

“No, let’s just stop at a Starbucks or something.”

“Alright, then I’ll get the bill,” TJ said, holding up his hand, signalling to the waiter to come over to their table.

He clenched his teeth when Reed walked up to the table, pulling the world’s tiniest notebook out of his apron.

“Did you enjoy your meal? Do you want any dessert?”

“Yeah, it was great,” Cyrus smiled at the waiter, “and can we please just get the bill?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, taking a machine out of his apron, “so, are you staying in Detroit for a while?”

“No, just tomorrow left, we’re going to New York,” Cyrus said, accepting the bill from Reed and handing it to TJ, “I like it here though.”

“Really?” TJ said, putting in his code, “You were convinced we were going to get shot a couple hours ago.”

“Yeah, in the area we’re staying in, not the _entirety_ of Detroit!”

Reed smiled at Cyrus, taking his notebook out and writing something down. He tore the paper off and handed it to Cyrus, just as TJ finished up his transaction.

“Well, if you would want to do anything tomorrow, you can give me a call.” He took his machine back from TJ and walked back up to the bar.

“Let’s just fucking get out of here,” TJ said, brusquely shoving his chair backwards and standing up, and walking towards the exit.

“Fine,” Cyrus said, standing up and following after TJ.

 

-

 

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Cyrus asked, closing the door of their motel room and putting his near-empty cup of coffee down on the dresser.

 He calmly took off his jacket and put it on the chair, bent down, untied his shoes, took them off and turned around to face TJ, who was sitting stoically on the bed, his jacket thrown on the ground. He picked his coffee back up and took a sip.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Don’t act like this? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong! Absolutely nothing’s wrong!”

“Then why are you being stupid?”

“Sure,” TJ laughed bitterly, “that’s me! Your stupid friend.”

“Teej,” Cyrus said, sitting down on the bed, “talk to me. Is it about the waiter?”

“Of course it’s about the fucking waiter, Cyrus! You’re just sitting here with his number in your pocket, pretending that’s not upsetting to me.”

“Well, why is that upsetting to you? Tell me! Talk for fucks sake!” Cyrus yelled, standing up, “god, this is ridiculous.”

TJ stood up too and turned around to face Cyrus, walking closer, and then further back, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Why is that _upsetting_ to me? God, Cyrus, are you dense?”

“Then, explain it to me! Fuck, TJ! Why is this such a big problem all of a sudd-”

“Because I’m _in love with you_!”

TJ’s words hung heavy in the air, making the space they were in feel infinitely smaller. For a moment they stared at each other, neither of them knowing what to say, or wanting to speak, now that TJ’s feelings were out there, on the table, for Cyrus to acknowledge or reject. Cyrus opened his mouth to speak but closed it again after a few seconds.

“Teej-” Cyrus started, taking a step closer, but TJ didn’t let him speak. He grabbed his jacket from the floor and walked to the door. “Wait, TJ, where the fuck are you going?”

“Taking a fucking walk,” TJ said, “giving you space, or whatever the fuck. Maybe you can call the fucking waiter.”

He promptly walked out and slammed the door, leaving Cyrus, still clutching his cold cup of coffee, having never felt so alone before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, uh, I'm sorry? the angst was long planned, but don't worry it gets worse in the next one  
> restaurants like that exist apparently, i went to one for my birthday last week and it was very nice.  
> sorry this took so long, i've just been extremely busy  
> find me on tumblr at [nineteenohtwo](https://nineteenohtwo.tumblr.com/), come say hi, leave me a prompt, come talk :)  
> leave a comment telling me what you think (or to scream at me a bit idc) they always make my day :)


	6. CARDIAC ARREST - BAD SUNS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> language!

5 years prior, P.E.

_The squeaking of new sneakers on the middle school gym floor was everything that could be heard, save for two voices that were routinely shouting out names, picking dodge ball teams._

_Cyrus, Andi and Buffy were sitting on the floor, huddled together, waiting for one of the two boys to pick one of them._

_“I pick Carter.”_

_“I pick Abigail._

_“I pick Buffy.”_

_“I pick Thomas.”_

_Cyrus was sat on the floor with the remaining ten or so kids that had yet to be picked for dodgeball. He was sticking close to Andi’s side, watching TJ and Daniel pick teams, praying to the heavens that he wouldn’t be last choice again._

_Buffy had already been picked by Daniel and was furiously whispering in his ear._

_“Alright, alright, Buffy! I pick Andi.”_

_Andi stood up and looked at Cyrus, her hand briefly lingering on his shoulder before she walked away and joined Buffy and the rest of Daniel’s team._

_“I pick Marty.”_

_Cyrus watched Marty scramble up from next to him on the floor and join TJ’s team, leaving him completely alone and friendless. Buffy and Andi were now both whispering to Daniel, who was looking at him with a tilted head._

_“There’s no way I’m picking the little one, Buffy!” Daniel waved in his general direction with a sneer on his face, “I pick Josh.”_

_Cyrus averted his eyes, looking at the floor. He felt rejected and humiliated. He was on the brink of asking his gym teacher if he could be excused when he heard TJ speak again._

_“Well, I guess I’ll take the little one, then.” He looked up to see TJ and Marty motioning in his direction. “Come on!”_

_“Have fun losing, Kippen, with that one in your team,” Daniel sneered, motioning to Mason to join him._

_“Have fun finding the difference between your head and your ass, Daniel. I pick Lisa.”_

_“James.”_

_“Marie.”_

_“Noah.”_

_“Lester.”_

_“Liam.”_

_“Gus.”_

_Gus stood up and walked over to TJ’s team, who were huddled together for a strategy discussion. Cyrus was stood just on the outside of the circle, wanting to hear what was said, but not wanting to intrude on the circle._

_“Cyrus, come on! You can’t hear us from where you’re standing!” Marty grabbed his arm and yanked him into the circle. Cyrus smiled a little, leaning into Marty._

_“So here’s what we’re going to do,” TJ said, tightening the circle, “Marty, Marie and I are the fastest, so we’re going to run up first, the rest of you stick to the back and try not to get hit. Alright?” He looked around the circle at his team that was nodding enthusiastically and his gaze lingered on Cyrus for a moment. “Alright with you too, Little One?”_

_“It’s Cyrus.”_

_“I know, Cyrus,” TJ said, lightly pushing Cyrus’ shoulder, “you shouldn’t let Daniel get to you like that. You’re better than him. Believe in yourself a little bit more. Confidence is key, that’s what coach always says.”_

_“Okay,” Cyrus nodded and started to walk over to the back where he was supposed to stay, “okay, I will.”_

_“Good,” TJ said, getting into position to book it to get to the balls in the middle. The gym teacher blew her whistle, sending all of the kids into motion. TJ, Marty and Marie managed to grab a ball, but Buffy, Daniel and Noah had also managed to get a hold of one. Buffy ran to the back and immediately threw a ball against Gus’ shoulder, striking him out._

_TJ ran to the front and threw a ball against Andi, who was stood in the corner, not really paying attention. She shot a smile at Buffy, and one at Cyrus and walked off the field. Cyrus stood next to Lisa and Marie, shaking in his shoes. He’d never been good at dodgeball, or even remotely enjoyed partaking in it. He saw Daniel picking up a ball that had just been thrown by Marty and scan the field for a next victim when his gaze landed on Cyrus. The right corner of his mouth went up a little, as if Cyrus was a sure hit, not worth a second thought._

_‘Believe in yourself a little bit more. Confidence is key,” TJ’s voice sounded in his head. He braced himself for the incoming ball, watching Daniel as if he was moving in slow motion, drawing his arm back and releasing the ball that steadily made his way towards Cyrus’ chest. He watched it come closer and instead of cowering in fear like he usually would’ve done, he stood tall, catching the ball with a little effort._

_“Daniel, you’re out,” Buffy said, shooing him off the field, sending Cyrus an impressed look._

_“Good job, Little One,” TJ looked back at Cyrus just long enough to get hit in the face with a ball the second he turned back around._

-

 

_“How was it playing on the team with TJ? Was he scary?”_

_“No, Andi, he was actually really nice,” Cyrus said, shrugging so his backpack would slide further up on his shoulder. “It’s not because he’s the basketball captain that he can’t be nice.”_

_“Thank you, Cyrus,” a teasing voice came from behind him, biting into a cereal bar he was holding, “nice to know that you don’t think I’m an asshole.”_

_“Uhm, I-” Cyrus stammered before he got interrupted by TJ’s laughter._

_“I’m kidding, Little One,” he winked, making Cyrus blush, “anyway, I wanted to ask if you wanted to come sit with us this afternoon.”_

_“Who is us?”_

_“Just me and Marty.”_

_“Can my friends come?” Cyrus asked, waving in the direction of Buffy, Andi and Jonah, who were huddled together and furiously whispering._

_“Sure, if they don’t think I’m scary.”_

_-_

Cyrus paced around their bedroom, dialling TJ’s number with the car keys in his hand. He walked up to the door and kicked it in frustration, hearing the people in the neighbouring room groan and bang on the wall.

“ _Heya, this is the voicemail of TJ Kippen, I’m not here at the moment, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!”_

_Beep._

“TJ, please come back, I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing here but we need to talk this out! I’m not doing this over the phone! Fuck!” Cyrus sat down on the bed, after he had been standing frozen in the same spot TJ left him in. He wiped the tears that were continuously streaming from his eyes as he tried to compose himself. “I’m literally about to come after you, and I don’t want to fucking go outside here, I’m going to get shot. Oh god, what if you got shot.”

He took a deep breath, wiped his nose and eyes with his sleeve and continued in a softer tone of voice.

“I’m not… I don’t… You… Just come back please. Or… at least let me know you’re alright. I’ve tried calling you twelve times now. I’m really worried.”

He put down the phone next to him on the bed and lied down, looking at the ceiling, wondering how everything had managed to go to absolute shit so quickly.

He took a quick glance at the neon green bedside alarm clock and saw it was one thirty AM, three hours after TJ had left him and two and a half hours after TJ last texted him.

He rolled over and looked at his phone again, opening the message app and staring at TJ’s contact.

 

**Teej**

Don’t come after me

Answer my calls please

TJ

God fucking damn it

I’m coming after you

Don’t

 

He stared at the words on his phone screen, as if he was trying to change them. He just couldn’t comprehend TJ leaving, doing this to him, _to them_. Cyrus turned his screen off, throwing his phone on the floor, not wanting to take even one look at it anymore.

He put his hands on the sides of his head, trying to stop it from hurting after crying for so long. His eyes welled up with tears again, and he wiped them in frustration, not wanting to cry over TJ again since it had no use, and wouldn’t bring him back.

He pushed himself up from the bed with shaky arms and slowly shed his clothes, putting on a pair of pyjama pants and TJ’s basketball hoodie, lying down on the bed, on top of the sheets, feeling too tired and worn out to properly tuck himself into bed. After a while he started shivering, but he didn’t pull the covers up over himself. Tucking himself into bed meant that the day would be really over and TJ was really gone, and Cyrus couldn’t handle that.

-

 

Three AM.

Cyrus lied on his back, staring up at the ceiling with a blank look in his eyes. He could feel the dried up tear streaks on his cheeks. The clock next to him kept steadily ticking and producing the only noise that could be heard in the room, next to Cyrus silent, shaky breaths.

He took a sip of the half-empty Red Bull that he opened partially to stay awake and partially to just have something to do, even though he felt so numb that the caffeine rush did practically nothing.

He had tried distracting himself from TJ’s absence, putting on a movie, a podcast, YouTube videos. He had tried scrolling down his Instagram feed for a bit, but he caught himself going to TJ’s profile over and over again, and had eventually just stopped trying to do anything, only taking small sips of his Red Bull out of habit.

He had given up on checking his phone half an hour ago. Buffy and Andi had texted, Jonah had even shot him a message in the group chat but he couldn’t find the energy to explain what happened to them, because he couldn’t even fully comprehend it himself.

The door creaked, and Cyrus rolled over in foetal position, watching the bottom of the door. When TJ’s sneakers came into view Cyrus shot up like someone had put the bed under electricity.

“TJ?”

“Don’t bother, Cyrus,” TJ sounded defeated, “I’m taking the keys.”

“Why are you taking the keys?”

“Because I’m going for a drive.”

Cyrus tried to focus his hazy sight on TJ, who was frantically patting the pockets of his jeans, jacket and then started patting the counter in search of his keys. TJ’s face was illuminated only by the hallway light that crept through the doorway that was only slightly opened, giving him a tired and eerie look, accentuating the bags under his eyes.

“Don’t bother,” Cyrus bitterly repeated what TJ had fired at him earlier, “I have your keys.”

“Why do you have my keys.”

“I was going to come after you,” Cyrus stood up and slowly walked towards TJ, as if he was walking towards a wounded animal, “but now you’re here and I don’t have to. So, you’re not going on a drive.”

“Yes I am, give me my keys,” TJ said, extending a shaky hand in Cyrus’ direction, “give me my goddamn keys, Cyrus.”

“You’re not. Fucking talk to me first. What are you planning on doing? Fucking leave me in Detroit?”

“Of course not, I-” TJ’s voice faded out as he looked away from Cyrus, nervously carding his fingers through his hair. He put a hesitant hand on Cyrus’ shoulder. “I wouldn’t just leave you.”

“No?” Cyrus laughed bitterly, violently pushing TJ’s hand off, “then what the fuck have you been doing these last five hours, TJ? God, fuck you TJ – but I guess it’s fuck me right? It’s never your fault, it’s never your loss. I guess I’m the fucking butt of the joke, sitting here like an idiot for hours and hours waiting for you to come back, only for you to _immediately_ leave me again.”

“It’s not like this! You’re not a joke to me, I-” TJ started, taken aback, “I just couldn’t stand there and listen to you say you don’t feel the same, I had to get out, I-”

Cyrus put up his hand to shush TJ in the middle of his sentence. He got up in TJ’s personal space and pushed against his chest, making TJ stumble back.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, TJ!” Cyrus whisper-yelled, careful not to disturb the neighbours, “You _do not_ get to do this to me! You don’t fucking put me on the spot and leave! Why do you get to decide what I feel?”

“I-”

“Yeah, you, it’s all about you tonight, right? Fucking hell. You are not the only one that has feelings TJ.” Cyrus said, pulling on his hair in anger, “You can’t just block out any conversation that scares you or fucking _run_ away in the middle of fucking Detroit when there’s a _possibility_ that I could say something you don’t like. I hadn’t even said _anything_ and you took that as an opportunity to leave.”

TJ took a step back, while Cyrus took a step forward, looking up at TJ in anger.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Cyrus said, taking a couple steps back himself and sitting down on the bed, all the fight that had burst out before leaving him all at once, “ _of course_ you’re sorry.”

TJ silently walked over to Cyrus, sitting down on the bed next to him, and putting his hand on top of Cyrus’.

“I am really sorry,” TJ whispered, biting his bottom lip, “I couldn’t handle it.”

“You always run away from conversations you don’t like. I’m sick of it, Teej.” Cyrus said, pulling his hand out from under TJ’s and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m really sick of it.”

“Well damn, Cy, what am I supposed to do?” TJ asked, turning around to face Cyrus. “I don’t know!”

“You’re supposed to talk to me, TJ! That’s what best friends do!”

“I tried!”

“No, you didn’t, you walked out of the door before we could even try to have a conversation.”

“I- yeah.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus repeated, also turning, so they were both sitting with their legs crossed on the bed, looking into each other’s eyes, “so you’re going to let me talk now, alright? No interruptions.”

“Okay, that’s fair.”

“Alright,” Cyrus took a deep breath in, “I’m really, really angry at you for leaving like that, and I need you to know that.”

“I’m so-”

“No interruptions!” Cyrus said, frantically waving his hands, “I’m angry, I need you to know that I have never been this angry at you before.”

TJ swallowed and leaned a little further away from Cyrus.

“That being said,” Cyrus continued hastily after seeing tears well up in TJ’s eyes, “you _are_ my best friend. I don’t think there’s anyone that knows me as well as you do, I think you know me better than Andi and Buffy.”

He paused and took a look around the room, thinking of a segue for the conversation to go where he wanted it to. He looked at the television in the corner, the single chair, the clock on the nightstand, his pants on the floor. The furniture didn’t give him any inspiration, so he scraped his throat and tried to find the right words to say.

“I’m not good at this,” Cyrus hesitantly started again, “and, by god, I know you’re even worse. But we can’t get better unless we try.”

“What are you talking about?” TJ whispered with his brows furrowed and his mouth in a straight line. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Cyrus.”

“ _Are you dense_?” Cyrus threw TJ’s words from earlier in the evening back at him, only this time it was said in a teasing tone, with the half-smile TJ knew so well.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” TJ said with a smirk, leaning closer to Cyrus, “enlighten me, Cyrus, exactly what are you getting at?”

“I,” Cyrus said, his smile slowly disappearing, “I like you, TJ, I do. But I can’t do this if you run away from me.”

“You can’t do what?” TJ whispered, leaning even closer, daring to put his hand on Cyrus’ again.

“Just… You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Cyrus said, leaning in and pressing his lips against TJ’s in a swift, bold move, pulling back just as fast as he went in.

TJ didn’t let him lean back completely, he dived back in immediately, putting his hand on the back of Cyrus’ neck and pulling him closer, kissing him over and over again until both of them pulled back, breathless.

“Alright.” Cyrus nodded, falling back on the bed, “that happened.”

“It did,” TJ said, lying down next to him, “so, what now?”

“Now we sleep.” Cyrus yawned, getting under the covers, “we’ll talk tomorrow. It’s almost four AM.”

“No,” TJ lied down next to Cyrus, snuggling closer, pressing himself up to Cyrus’ back, “I want to talk with you now.”

“Let’s sleep.”

“No,” TJ whispered, kissing Cyrus on the cheek, “why would I want to go to bed when I can do this now?”

“Because we need to sleep,” Cyrus rolled over to rub his nose against TJ’s, “because we have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

“We don’t have a drive ahead of us tomorrow,” TJ whispered, slowly pressing his lips against Cyrus’, “we have an entire free day in Detroit.”

“It’s like we planned this,” Cyrus laughed against TJ’s mouth, “I am officially the master of road trip planning.”

“Are you now?” TJ chuckled, pressing their foreheads together.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, opening his eyes to look at TJ, “I think that gives me music privileges forever now.”

“Oh, you wish,” TJ laughed a full face smile, rolling over on his back, “do you really want to go to sleep?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus whispered, pulling TJ closer to him and pushing the hair off his forehead to plant a kiss there. He closed his eyes again and put his arms around TJ’s neck to play with his hair, “we have all the time in the world to talk tomorrow.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of angsty angst and fighting but hey! resolution! nice!
> 
> anyway i urge you to listen to this song because it's one of my favourite songs ever, i like how it builds
> 
> come say hi on tumblr [nineteenohtwo](https://nineteenohtwo.tumblr.com/), leave me a prompt, scream at me a bit 
> 
> only two chapters left i'm sad
> 
> please leave a comment telling me what you think, they always make my day


	7. IF WE WERE VAMPIRES - JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT

Cyrus opened his eyes, blinking against the harsh light spilling from the window blinds.

“Teej.”

“It’s eleven AM.”

“Hmm.”

“We overslept.”

“I don’t care.” TJ said, draping the entire right side of his body over Cyrus and pressing his face into Cyrus’ shoulder.

“I do!” Cyrus attempted to push him off, to no avail, “I want to see a little Detroit before we leave here.”

“I’m not that bothered about that. Google Street View is free.”

Cyrus chuckled. “Get off me, you big baby. Time for breakfast.” He pushed TJ off of him, stood up from the bed and opened the blinds completely. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Don’t be too long.” TJ said, stretching his arm out to Cyrus from the bed. “I miss you already.”

“Sap.” Cyrus smiled and disappeared into the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and got into the shower, relishing in the feeling of hot water on his skin and the familiar smell of TJ’s shampoo. He felt the tension in his shoulders disappear as the water trickled down. Honestly, the water pressure was shitty and the temperature wasn’t all too great, and the bathroom had the pertinent smell of mouldy grapes, but he was too happy to care.

He walked back into the room, silently laughing at TJ who had sprawled over the entire bed, his face pressed into Cyrus’ pillow.

“TJ, get up.”

“It’s too early.”

“It’s almost noon, idiot,” He pulled the duvet off TJ, “we need to eat and talk.”

“We don’t need to talk _now_ ,” TJ groaned.

“Yes we do. Go take a shower, I’ll google a place for breakfast.”

 

-

 

“You google a place for breakfast and in all of Detroit we still end up at a McDonalds?”

“Yes,” Cyrus said, pouting and leaning on the top of the car, “I wanted an Egg McMuffin, and because you didn’t get out of bed for half an hour you don’t get a say.”

He started stalking towards the shop, when TJ took his hand and pulled him back towards him. “Hey, there. Slow down.” He put his hands on Cyrus’ waist and stepped closer so they were standing chest to chest.

“Why?” Cyrus asked, said, slinging his arms around TJ’s neck, “I’m hungry, I want to go inside.”

“What I don’t want to go inside?”

“Bad luck, because I’m definitely going.”

“What if I wanted to kiss you instead?”

Cyrus stood up on his toes, missed TJ’s mouth on purpose and planted a quick kiss on TJ’s cheek. “Then you should’ve gotten up earlier.” He let go and started walking towards the McDonalds again. He looked back at TJ, who was still leaning against the car. “Come on, dumbass.”

TJ shook his head fondly, slowly following after Cyrus. “You’re going to be the death of me, Goodman.”

 

-

 

“So, let’s talk.”

“Sure,” Cyrus said, taking a cautious sip of his coffee. “The coffee here is always so damn hot. Did you hear about that old woman that sued McDonalds because her coffee was over 200 degrees and it burned her after she dropped it on her legs?”

“Why would she drop the coffee?”

“Can’t imagine it was a conscious decision.” He took a bite of his McMuffin, “In my memories this tasted better.”

TJ swallowed his hash brown down, “I hate McDonalds.”

Cyrus chuckled into his coffee. “No, you don’t. We go there too often for you to hate it.”

“I go along to McDonalds because _you_ like it.”

Cyrus nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “So…”

“So,” TJ repeated, “talking.”

“Talking, yeah.” Cyrus said, taking another bite, “You know what, I’ll start. You _never_ get to pull the shit you did last night on me again.”

“I won’t-”

“Shush, I’m not done.” Cyrus put up his hand to interrupt TJ, “If something bothers you, I want you to tell me that it’s bothering you and not just let it come to a boiling point where you explode. You’re like a time bomb sometimes. You just stay quiet until I coax you to talk, and if you don’t want to talk you just bottle it up until you blow up in my face.” He looked up from his breakfast and looked TJ directly into the eyes. “I don’t like it when you do that.”

“I don’t like it when I do that,” TJ mumbled. “I’ll try talking. But you have to talk to me too.”

Cyrus raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“You can be a ‘Suffer-In-Silence’ type sometimes,” TJ said, “pushing your problems to the background because you think mine are more important. Or Buffy’s, or Jonah’s, or Andi’s, for that matter.”

“Alright, I can do that too,” Cyrus said, flushing red in the neck when he realised how much silent attention TJ was always paying to him. “Anything else?”

TJ smiled over the rim of his hot chocolate. “What? You want to make a relationship contract? To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before style?”

“ _TJ must watch one quality movie with Cyrus every week,”_ Cyrus declared, miming a pen and paper in the air.

TJ laughed and went along with the act, taking the imaginary stationary from Cyrus and adding his own rules. “ _Cyrus must go with TJ to see Marvel movies in the cinema and will watch one superhero television show with him.”_

Cyrus raised his eyebrows and took it back. “ _TJ will let Cyrus drive more often, as he has terrible road rage and drives way too fast.”_

“ _Cyrus will let TJ decide on the music more often, and will stop complaining about TJ’s driving speed, as he has never gotten a speeding ticket._ ”

“ _TJ will come to museums with Cyrus.”_

“ _Cyrus will go to sports games with TJ._ ”

“ _TJ will watch Game of Thrones with Cyrus.”_

TJ bit his bottom lip, but couldn’t control the smile that had been on his face the entire day. “Cyrus will be TJ’s boyfriend.”

Cyrus smiled back. “Only if TJ will be Cyrus’ boyfriend.”

TJ leaned back. “No can do, I’m afraid.”

“Oh well,” Cyrus said with a fake pout on his face, “this was fun while it lasted.”

“Yeah,” TJ sighed, “too bad we’re stuck in a car with each other for like… another two weeks.”

“Oh no, that’s gonna be so awkward, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, pressing his ankle against TJ’s, “we’ll figure it out.”

 

-

 

Cyrus plugged his phone into the AUX, when TJ got into the driver’s seat, pulling out of the motel parking space in one swift move. “We need to go shopping again. We don’t have any drinks left.”

“And what will you do without your Sprite. What is that playlist called again? The one we made for that picnic?”

“It’s called ‘Tuesday picnic’,” TJ smiled, “what a clever name we came up with.”

“Here it is,” Cyrus said, scrolling down his phone, “should I just put it on shuffle or search for some Hozier?”

“Put it on shuffle,” TJ said, “let us be surprised.”

Soft guitar sounds filled the car, TJ instantly recognised the song, while Cyrus blanked. “Who’s this? Sufjan Stevens?”

“Come on, Cyrus, this doesn’t sound anything like Sufjan Stevens.” He looked through the windshield and tried to ignore the harsh sunlight beating down on them, “It’s the most beautiful love song ever written.” He rubbed Cyrus’ knee, and added, “You know, in my opinion.”

Cyrus tried to listen to the song, and found himself captured by the sweet melody, as TJ softly sang along to the lyrics.

“ _It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever,_ ” TJ sang, while gripping the gear shift so tightly his knuckles turned white, “ _likely one of us will have to spend some days alone. Maybe we’ll get forty years together, but one day I’ll be gone._ ” He cast a fleeting glance at Cyrus. “ _Or one day you’ll be_ gone.”

“Wow,” Cyrus hummed along with TJ, and let out a deep breath when the song finished. “Does that scare you? Death?”

“Not really,” TJ said, “I don’t fear dying, I just can’t stand the thought of losing someone I care about. I remember my granddad’s funeral, when I was six, or seven. Mom didn’t allow Amber and I to go look at the coffin, but after she left the church, we ran back in to look. I just remember him lying there, as if he was just taking an afternoon nap, like usually. It was as if he was on the brink of waking up and offering to make waffles. Or do the… I don’t know, do the fucking crossword in the paper together.” He looked briefly over at Cyrus, “A couple of days after, it just hit me that I would never be able to talk to him again.”

Cyrus nodded, thinking of his own Bubbe Rose. “I hate it when people say something along the lines of ‘You need to make sure you’ve said everything you want to say’, because it’s such bullshit,” He put his hand over TJ’s on the gear shift, without looking sideways, “how do you know when you’ve said enough? You don’t. You never will have said enough.”

“Yeah,” TJ agreed softly, “I remember a couple of years ago, when the new Star Wars came out, the only thing I could think was that he’d have been so happy to see that movie, he was such a fan.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus echoed, “I will never have said enough. When you’ve said everything you’ve ever wanted to say, that’s when you’re ready to die.”

“Dark,” TJ said, moving his thumb over Cyrus’ on the gear shift, “let’s talk about something else.”

Cyrus looked amused, “Isn’t that what road trips are for? Deep conversations about death and existential dread?”

“What have you been reading?” TJ said, poking Cyrus in the stomach, and feigning nonchalance, “Besides, I’ve heard that road trips are for music and slowly falling in love with your best friend.”

“Have you now? How convenient.”

 

-

 

“Here! Here! You need to take the exit, Teej!”

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”

“Nice,” Cyrus fell back in his seat, “let’s just get a sandwich here too, I’m starving. See, that’s why you can’t have breakfast at one in the afternoon, you get hungry at like, four.”

“It’s fine,” TJ said, pulling into the parking lot, “we’ll just have a late dinner.”

“We’ll be in New York for dinner. Isn’t that exciting.”

“It is,” TJ said, “you know, I just realised we haven’t told our friends yet.”

Cyrus raised his eyebrows as he took a six pack Sprite Bottles and some bottled water from a shelf. “No, we haven’t. And Buffy and Andi have been stalking me since yesterday.”

“Same,” TJ chuckled, walking further into the store. “So, you want some chips, or cookies?”

“We’re out of M&M’s, and I could go for some Pringles.”

“Cool, I’ll get those, you get sandwiches?” TJ said, turning on his heel and heading for the candy aisle.

“You trust me to pick out your sandwich?” Cyrus called after him.

“I trust you with my car, I’m pretty sure a sandwich is child’s play!”

“Fair enough.”

 

-

 

“We should just… upload an Instagram post, It’ll drive them nuts.”

“Oh, that’s evil,” Cyrus said, putting their groceries in their bags and boxes on the backseat, “I love it.”

“I have an idea, come here.”

 

-

 

 

 

-

 

“CYRUS GOODMAN!”

“Hi, Andi,” Cyrus said, holding the phone away from his face, “how are you doing on this fine evening?”

“Don’t ‘Hi Andi’ me, why didn’t you say something before?”

“It has been a little blurry, I’ll admit,” TJ chimed in, “but isn’t the picture cute? It is right?”

“It was _adorable,_ you _assholes_ ,” Andi growled into the telephone, “do you realise how worried we all were when there was just radio silence yesterday night?”

Cyrus laughed at nothing in particular, “I don’t know, Andi, how worried were you?”

“ _Very worried!_ Buffy will have your head, I’m predicting it now.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” TJ said, “I bet you’re all just bursting with excitement for us.”

Andi sighed, “Of course we are happy! We’ve been waiting for this for at least two years. I owe Marty ten bucks now.”

“You _bet_ on us?”

“Yeah, and I lost,” Andi moped, “I bet that you were at least going to hold out until graduation.”

“You are a sick little woman,” Cyrus said, “anyway, we’ll call back later, or send something in the group chat, but my battery is dying so I have to go.”

“Sure,” Andi said, not believing it for one bit, “but I _will_ be hearing all the details tonight, young man!”

“Alright, alright, talk to you later,” Cyrus said, ending the phone call. “That was pleasant.”

TJ burst into laughter, “It most certainly was. Want to park somewhere and eat our sandwiches?”

“Fine by me.”

TJ took the nearest exit and parked the car in front of a large gas station, since they were also in dire need of gas. He put the gear stick in park and leaned back. “I’ve made an observation.”

“Enlighten me.”

“We haven’t kissed all day.”

“Technically not true, we kissed at like four AM, which is still today.”

“That is, by all standards, way too long ago.”

Cyrus smiled and rolled his eyes and took a last swig of his Sprite before he screwed the cap back onto the bottle and put it down. “Is it now?”

“Yeah,” TJ smiled back, leaning in, “I need at least ten per hour to be satisfied.”

Cyrus leaned back just before their lips could meet. “Ten? Seems a little excessive.”

“What can I say,” TJ said, tilting Cyrus’ chin up with his finger, “you’re just a little irresistible.” He slowly pressed his lips against Cyrus, and pulled back smiling.

“What are you smiling about?”

“Just happy.” Kiss. “That I.” Kiss. “Can do this now, whenever I want.”

“Aha, right,” Cyrus said, pressing a last kiss on the corner of TJ’s mouth before sitting back up straight, “now, let’s finish our lunch and get driving, I don’t want some old truck driver knocking on our window.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i've had a very busy couple of months, i'm so so sorry that this is so late, but hey! better late than never, huh? One chapter left, i'm a little sad :(  
> come say hi on tumblr!


	8. ULTRALIFE - OH WONDER

“Cyrus, wake up.”

“Hmm?”

“Wake up, we’re here.”

“Hmm?” Cyrus said, pushing himself up in his seat and rubbing his eyes. “Where are we?”

“We’re at the Airbnb.”

Cyrus turned to TJ with his brows furrowed, and then looked back through the windshield, looking over small, narrow but clean street while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “But you were supposed to wake me up after an hour?”

“Well,” TJ said, putting a hand on Cyrus’ face and tenderly swiping his thumb over his cheek, “I had a lot to think about, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Very,” TJ grinned, leaning in closer to Cyrus and kissing the corner of his mouth, “let’s have dinner and then go to bed.”

“What time is it?” Cyrus whispered against TJ’s lips, pushing him away only a little so he could look into his eyes.

“Around seven, I think.”

Cyrus bit his bottom lip, “Not enough time for dinner, we have to pick up the key around half eight.”

“So…” TJ said, the sheer intonation of his voice making Cyrus look up, “You mean we have some time to kill?”

Cyrus raised his eyebrows, “I guess so. Want to play Travel Scrabble?”

“No,” TJ frowned, leaning back in his chair to look at Cyrus, “I don’t think there’s anything I’d want to do less than play Travel Scrabble.”

“What could be more fun than Travel Scrabble?”

“God, you drive me nuts,” TJ smiled, cupping Cyrus’ face in both his hands and leaning in to kiss him, “Travel Scrabble. You can’t make that shit up.”

“I’m not making it up,” Cyrus grinned while kissing back, “I brought it. It’s in the glove compartment.”

“I don’t fucking know how to spell.” TJ said, pulling Cyrus closer.

“Don’t know about that,” Cyrus teased, “I think we’ve already reached the quota of ten kisses today.”

TJ flicked him against the cheek, pulling back, “That’s the bare minimum, asshole.”

“Then what’s the maximum?”

“No maximum, dickhead,” TJ said, as he dove back in.

 

-

 

“You know what?” TJ put his burger down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “We haven’t had a single salad on this trip.”

“So?”

“We’re getting fat.”

“At least we’re getting fat together,” Cyrus said, taking a bite of his burger, “This is so good, holy shit.”

TJ smiled and fondly looked at Cyrus, who was gorging himself on his burger as if he was being timed. “Slow down, you’re going to choke at this speed.”

The diner they were at was crowded and tiny and smelled like a thousand different types of spices, but TJ loved it. It was so distinctly different, nothing at home even came close. He was grateful Cyrus had picked this diner by scouring TripAdvisor for hours, and hours. If it had been up to TJ, they had probably landed at KFC. Again.

“So, New York City. Is it living up to your expectations?”

“We have been here for like three hours.”

“So?”

“So, I need some more time to evaluate the city, TJ,” Cyrus said, stealing one of TJ’s onion rings.

TJ tried batting his hand away but was just a little too late. Instead he resorted for stealing a couple of Cyrus’ fries as revenge. “You decided you loved Detroit after exactly zero point four seconds.”

“That’s not true,” Cyrus said, “I thought we were going to get shot in Detroit.”

“Fair,” TJ said, taking a bite of his burger. “It’s fucking weird we’re actually here.” He shook his head, taking in his surroundings, “When we started New York seemed like light years away.”

“I know right!” Cyrus said, the bags under his eyes looking less visible because of all the smiling. “I feel light years away from the person I was when we started driving.”

TJ raised his eyebrows, “Really? I feel exactly the same.” He saw Cyrus eyeing his onion rings again and pushed the basket towards him, “I feel a little happier, that’s all.”

“Just a little?”

TJ smiled and took another bite, “I don’t know. It all feels the same, but just a little elevated, you know? Like when you go to see a movie during the day, and you come out and everything is dark?” He looked at Cyrus, who was looking back with a confused look, making his burst out laughing, “Alright, maybe I’m not that good at analogies.”

“Everything feels elevated was nice,” Cyrus laughed, “then it started going South.”

“Oh, you know what I meant,” TJ said, fondly shaking his head. “Everything is the same, just…”

“Better.”

“Yes, better.”

 

-

 

“Do you think it’ll be different when we’re home?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Cyrus looked up at TJ, while at the same time trying to look where he was walking.

TJ shrugged, “This has been like us living in a bubble of only each other for days and days and days. We’ll have another couple days to ourselves when driving back. And then we’ll be home.”

“Yes?”

“We’ll be home, and Andi will be home, and Amber and Buffy and Jonah and Marty will be home and we’ll have to make time for each other. We don’t have entire days just to talk anymore. And then school will start again, and we’ll have even less time to talk.”

Cyrus looked at his feet, “That’s a little pessimistic.”

TJ frowned, “I didn’t mean it to be pessimistic.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Just that we’ll have to consciously make time for each other, you know,” TJ looked down and put his arm around Cyrus’ shoulders, stroking his fingers up and down his arm, “Keep it alive.”

“Keep it alive,” Cyrus mimicked TJ, “as if we weren’t already together all the time before we left.”

“That’s true,” TJ said, tightening his grip on Cyrus’ shoulders, “but everything is different now.”

Cyrus sighed and put his arm around TJ’s middle, gripping TJ’s hand that was hanging off of his shoulders with his and intertwining their fingers. “But you still want to do this, right?”

“What?”

“Us. Being together?”

“Of course!” TJ said, looking offended that Cyrus would even ask, “I’ve been half in love with you since I met you and you think I’d break it off now that I finally have you?” He shook his head, and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Cyrus’ head, “Not happening. No way José.”

Cyrus laughed and was about to give TJ a kiss when he saw a man staring at them from across the street. He started walking at a much quicker pace to pass him, dragging TJ along. “Hey, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“What isn’t?”

“PDA in the middle of the streets.”

TJ bit his bottom lip, looking around, “Do you want to let go?”

Cyrus looked up at him, licking his lips and looking at his feet, feeling determination bubble up in his gut. Fuck that man. He wasn’t ashamed. “No.” He locked eyes with TJ and reached up to give TJ a kiss on his jaw. “No, I don’t.”

TJ smiled knowingly and kept on walking, pulling Cyrus along and marvelling at the tall buildings, the smells, the noises coming out of every bar and the feeling of being in a big city.

“What now? Go back to the Airbnb?”

“Are you insane?” Cyrus said, untangling from TJ and taking both his hands, “We’re in the city that never sleeps and you want to go to bed?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Cyrus looked around, biting his bottom lip, when he spotted the familiar golden arches in the distance. “Milkshakes?”

“I don’t like McDonalds.”

“Come on,” Cyrus said, pulling at TJ’s sleeve, “it’s tradition.”

TJ threw his head back and groaned. “I’d like to find someplace else to have a milkshake.”

“Fine,” Cyrus said, taking his phone out of his pocket, “Let me google it.”

 

-

 

TJ ducked to avoid hitting his head on the door when he entered the small bar Cyrus had managed to find. The room was lit in a dim red light and most people there were obviously college students, having a drink after a tiring day of school.

TJ smiled at Cyrus and walked up to the bar, sitting on a stool next to a couple of girls drinking margaritas, waiting for his turn to order, as Cyrus had sat down at a small table in the corner of the bar.

“Yes,” he heard, and he looked up to the bartender, who was tapping his fingers on the bar, “what do you want?” He looked TJ up and down, “If it has alcohol in it, I’m going to need to see ID, kid.”

“No, uh,” he said, thrown off his rhythm, “one strawberry and one vanilla milkshake please. No alcohol.”

“Milkshakes?” He smiled and shook his head, “How old are you?”

TJ nervously flicked his tongue over his bottom lip, afraid that he was going to throw him out of the bar, “I turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago.”

“Visiting?”

“Yeah, I’m on a road trip with my…” he looked at Cyrus, who was tapping away on his phone, probably recounting the events of the day to Buffy and Andi, “with my boyfriend.”

The bartender smiled and looked around the bar, his eyes landing on Cyrus. “That him?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have someone bring the milkshakes out to you, alright?” He said, giving TJ a friendly slap on the shoulder, “That’ll be nine dollars.”

TJ put the money on the bar and put another five in the tip jar, feeling confused, but not uncomfortable. He got off the barstool and walked back over to Cyrus.

“That was weird.”

Cyrus smiled and put his phone in his pocket. “What happened?”

“I think the bartender thinks I’m twelve.”

“You look about twelve.”

“Shut up.” TJ said, grabbing Cyrus’ hand under the table, “God, I can’t believe we’re in New York.”

“It seems so crazy, doesn’t it?” Cyrus said, “I get such a rush out of big cities. When you walk through it and it’s alive, you know?” His eyes sparkled under the red lights of the bar and TJ’s stomach flipped over on itself, “It’s so hard to fathom that there are actual people living behind the windows of all these ginormous buildings. Fucking insane.”

TJ smiled and opened his mouth to answer when a young girl walked over to their table, holding their milkshakes.

“You ordered these?”

“Yes, we did.”

She nodded, put them down on the table and left.

“New York hospitality,” Cyrus said, when his phone dinged. “Have you seen Jonah made an Insta? The fuck?”

TJ opened his phone and grinned, “I love the caption.”

“Very on brand. How does he have so many followers already?”

“Probably because of his YouTube channel,” TJ said, arranging the milkshakes just right to take a pic, “apparently watching Jonah sing Billie Eilish covers twice a week really does it for some people.”

-

 

-

 

 

-

 

“And here to your left, there is one of our twenty-three residences, guaranteeing at least four years of housing to all entering freshmen…”

“Fuck, he really just ripped that off of the website, huh,” Cyrus whispered into TJ’s ear, “I’ve never been so bored.”

TJ looked at the small crowd that had been following their assigned student around for the last hour and looked back at Cyrus, “Want to bounce?”

“God, yes,” Cyrus said, grabbing TJ’s hand, “we can go back to our own housing instance and chill.”

“An Airbnb isn’t a housing instance, Cyrus,” TJ said, walking away from their tour, lightly swinging their intertwined hands back and forward, “and why would we go there, if we’re in New York now? Live a little!”

“What do you propose we do then?” Cyrus asked, “We’re gonna be in New York full time next year, we have all the time in the world to explore the city.”

“Exactly! Next year we’ll be residents here! People of New York.” TJ said, letting go of Cyrus’ hand to gesticulate and fuck – Cyrus has always liked him best when he’s like this; all sparkling eyes and wild hands and a smile as bright as the billboards behind him flashing Coca Cola advertisements. He looked good, and he looked like he had finally found a place to come alive.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Cyrus raised his eyebrows, making a grab for TJ’s hand back, because he wanted to hold it, _damn it_ , and TJ laughed, throwing an easy arm around Cyrus’ shoulder and kissing him on the corner of his mouth.

“It has to do with everything! I want to be a tourist for the little while I don’t live here. Go to the MET, or to the Empire State Building, or to Lady fucking Liberty, I don’t care. Let’s just explore as much as we can.”

Cyrus laughed, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, sure, let’s do it. Tourist me up, baby.”

 

-

 

And as easy as one, two, three, Cyrus and TJ became tourists. They each bought a shitty I-heart-NY shirt. They visited the statue of Liberty, and the MET museum, which “Is a two hour walk, TJ”, so TJ hauled for a cab, as if he had done it all his life.

“New York looks smaller in the movies.” TJ said in the cab, leaning back against his car seat, “it’s like you could walk through it in an hour, an hour and a half, tops.”

“New York is the fourth most populated city in the United States of America, and has a surface area of 302.6 square miles,” Cyrus recited from the back of the paper map that was lying on the kitchen table back at their Airbnb, and TJ shut up.

 

-

 

“Amber texted me,” TJ said, taking a quick look at his phone, but soon diverting his attention back to the art in front of them, “I really don’t get this statue. It’s so ugly.”

“It has character.”

“Your mum has character,” TJ said, fondly shaking his head and opening his text conversation with Amber, “this bitch really texted me to say that I have to like her new Instagram picture.” He glared daggers at his phone, as if Amber was going to somehow feel it through the screen.

“Oh, I get why,” Cyrus laughed, showing his phone to TJ, “it’s shade towards us.”

TJ rolled his eyes and handed the phone back, “We’ll get them later. Upload something way cuter.”

“Sure,” Cyrus said, taking his phone out of his pocket, “smile!”

 

-

 

 

-

 

 

-

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

-

 

Cyrus took a picture of his ice cream cone, making sure some famous buildings were visible in the back of it. “I’m really on top of the world right now.”

“Cool,” TJ said, putting some of his ice cream on his finger and smearing it on Cyrus’ face, “here you go mister Worldwide.”

“I’m not Pitbull, jerk,” Cyrus tried to look angry but couldn’t muster it, wiping the ice cream off his face with a napkin. He finished the last bit of his, and put the empty cup down on the bench next to him. TJ, who had opted for a cone, was licking a stripe up in an effort to get all of the ice cream that was steadily melting all over his hands.

Cyrus put his head down on TJ’s shoulder, pushing his nose into the shirt he was wearing, deeply inhaling the scent of his fabric softener, deodorant and sweat.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re gonna take a nap here? In the middle of the street? At five in the afternoon?”

Cyrus shrugged and cosied up to him even more, “Yes.”

“Hey,” TJ wiggled his arm around, making Cyrus look up at him. He grabbed Cyrus’ chin with his sticky, ice cream covered hand and pushed their foreheads together, “let’s go to the Airbnb, sleepyhead.”

“Hmm,” Cyrus said, leaning up and briefly pushing their lips together in a chaste kiss, “yeah, let’s go.”

 

-

 

 

-

 

TJ unlocked the door, putting the key in a bowl on the kitchen table. “Home sweet home.”

“Time for a nap,” Cyrus said, walking into the bedroom. He kicked off his shoes and tried taking off his jeans, while TJ watched him from the door opening.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said, finally getting the pants off and putting on TJ’s sweatpants. He lied down on top of the bedsheets, closing his eyes and making grabby hands at TJ. “Come nap with me.”

TJ rolled his eyes, but nevertheless took off his shoes and changed into more comfortable clothes, and lied down next to Cyrus, intertwining their fingers. “Hey.”

Cyrus opened one eye and closed it again, smiling. “Hi. Come closer.” He reached out and pulled TJ closer to him by the shirt, burying his head in his chest. TJ made sure Cyrus’ head was comfortably lying on his arm before wrapping them around Cyrus and shuffling down a bit to put his head on top of Cyrus’. “Hmm,” Cyrus hummed, “you’re warm.”

“Can’t help that, I’m afraid.”

“It’s nice,” Cyrus said, burying his fingers in TJ’s hair and playing with it, revelling in the feeling. “You’re nice.”

“You’re nice too,” TJ huffed out a small smile, gently pressing his lips to Cyrus’ forehead. “are you gonna sleep?”

“Hmm.”

“Baby? Do I have to set up an alarm?”

Cyrus laughed against TJ’s chest, “Baby. I could get used to that.”

“Well,” TJ said, putting his hand on Cyrus’ face and gently stroked his cheek, “ _baby_ , do I have to set up an alarm?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Cyrus yawned, “wake me up in an hour. Maybe two.”

TJ listened to Cyrus’ breathing go deep and steady and looked at his eyelids flutter, holding him in his arms as if he was holding something precious. He carefully untangled himself a bit from Cyrus, took his phone from his pocket and set up an alarm. He opened up Instagram, liking some pictures of his friends and leaving a snarky comment on Amber’s photo.

He put his phone down on the bed, next to Cyrus’ head when it started ringing.

“Hello?”

“TJ? Hi!”

“Oh, Amber,” TJ got up from the bed and walked out of the room, sitting down on the tiny sofa in the kitchen-slash-living room of their Airbnb. “How are you? I miss you.”

“I miss you too!” TJ could hear Andi and Marty bicker in the background, “arrived in New York alright? Where is Cyrus?”

“We were taking a nap when you called, he’s still asleep. We arrived fine, I guess. Played the tourist for a bit today. I bought you a fridge magnet.”

Amber chuckled, “I would appreciate it more if I had a fridge.”

“I’m planning for the future, Ambs,” TJ said, “a fridge magnet for your college housing, when you’re up there in New Jersey.”

“New Jersey and New York aren’t that far apart. We’ll see each other often.” Amber said. TJ could hear her close a door, and assumed that she walked into the bathroom to talk, “so… are you and Cyrus in love? Is it official?”

TJ sighed, blushing, even though Amber couldn’t possibly see, “Yeah, we talked about it last night. He’s so great, I finally get your three hour rants about Andi.”

“They’re not _three hours,_ TJ,” Amber huffed, “so you’re good? Everything’s fine there? Mom wanted me to ask if you needed more money.”

“I’m fine for now, I think. Maybe another fifty in a couple days, when we start going back, so I can pay for some more snacks.”

“I’ll let her know.” She scraped her throat, “I’m gonna go back to the troublemakers, make sure they don’t destroy our house, and I’m gonna let you get back to napping with the boyfriend.” She let a moment of silence pass before she said, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too. We’ll talk soon, alright?”

“Yeah, love you.”

“Love you too.”

TJ walked back into the bedroom and saw that Cyrus had fully rolled over on one side. He climbed back up into bed and put his arm over Cyrus, spooning his back and letting himself drift off to sleep.

 

-

 

“Hey.”

TJ blinked, seeing a pair of brown eyes incredibly close to his face, “Hey there.” He sat up straight and stretched, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “Sleep well?”

“Yeah, you?”

TJ nodded, leaning down and kissing Cyrus on the forehead. He reached out and brushed some of Cyrus’ hair off his forehead, “Your hair is sticking out. Very cute.” He raised his eyebrows and yawned, “Want to go for dinner?”

Cyrus rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up straight against the headboard. “Want to stay in tonight?”

“Why? Don’t want to go for a wild adventure in the city?”

“No,” Cyrus said, taking TJ’s hand and watching their fingers slot together, “I kind of want to be alone with you tonight. Is that okay?”

“If you’re happy and I can keep holding your hand, I’m fine.” He squeezed his hand to illustrate his point.

Cyrus scrunched up his nose, lying his head down on TJ’s shoulder. “You can tell me if I’m making everything about me.”

TJ looked at him, with his big brown eyes and hair tousled and he felt like he might die. “You don’t get it,” He said, stroking Cyrus’ cheek and pulling him in for a soft and lingering kiss, “Everything is about you, somehow.”

Cyrus kisses him on the nose, flopping down on the bed. “Good god,” He threw his phone down on the bed and cuddled up to TJ’s chest. “We have all the time in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end!! leave me a last comment, tell me what you think, i really really hope you liked it
> 
> x  
> el  
> (come say smth on tumblr, @nineteenohtwo)

**Author's Note:**

> Heya!  
> So, this fic has been in the works since late September, and I finally know where the fuck i'm heading with it, so I feel safe to post it now. This fic will have 8 chapters, each one with a song title as a chapter (an idea i stole from this Evak fic that had different painters as chapter titles).  
> The title of the fic is from a dodie song, "One for the road", which is about a situation that does not apply to this fic at all, lol.  
> I really, really hope you like it  
> find me on tumblr, at [nineteenohtwo](https://nineteenohtwo.tumblr.com/)  
> please leave a comment telling me what you think!


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